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In the classroom
Misconceptions
Although both are important, it is necessary
- but difficult - here to distinguish between misconceptions and bad taste.
Misconceptions concern things such as the nature of a presentation and
its suitability for an intended audience and purpose. Bad taste is often
when the second of these is ignored rather than misunderstood.
The most common misconception is where pupils
fail to distinguish between the complete presentation (words and PowerPoint
slides) and what they see on the screen. I have written a (bad) slide
which makes this point. Pupils can also misunderstand what would appeal
to a given audience, initially having the egocentric view that what appeals
to them will, by virtue of this, appeal to everyone.
However, many examples of 'bad taste' presentations
are the result of pupils not thinking about their audience at all rather
than misunderstanding it. Additionally pupils can put in hugely inappropriate
transitions and animations because of an 'I can do it therefore
I will do it' approach. Here the role of the teacher is different
- not to change what pupils think but to get them to consider things that
they have not so far done.
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Classroom examples
Two
examples of how PowerPoint was introduced to classes - both stress that
presentations have purposes and audiences. One is a worksheet
produced by Sahera Khan, the other is an introduction,
worksheet,
lesson plan and sample
presentation by Elizabeth Doyle.
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Teaching point
Two points:
In this session you all had the same task yet the
outcome will be at a variety of levels - different people will show varying
degree of expertise in both the construction of PowerPoint slides and
in using them to give a presentation. This is an example of differentiation
by outcome. Not all tasks are suitable for this form of differentiation
- there must be the scope to allow pupils to demonstrate a variety of
skills and/or capabilities. (For example asking "What does 2+2 equal"
does not allow a variety of correct but different answers.) When planning
your lessons, you need to think carefully about what sort of tasks will
be suitable for this purpose - and the levels of attainment you expect
the task would allow pupils to demonstrate.
When children are making presentations they often
spend a lot of time in lessons deciding what text to write. Drafting this
would be an excellent homework task - allowing class time to be spent
on that which cannot be done at home.
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Other Resources
The DfEE Schemes of Work
You should look at the following units of the DfEE
schemes of work
Key Stage 2: unit 6A Multimedia
presentation;
Key Stage 3: unit 1 Using
ICT.
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Books/Papers
BECTa has produced a report for the DfEE on the relationship
between ICT resources and standards in Primary schools "Primary
Schools of the Future - Achieving Today". You could consult this
and compare its findings with those reported in this session.
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