PowerPoint.

I must say that when I was scrolling through the Delivery Technologies topic on the Moodle website and came to the part which focused on PowerPoint presentations (Central Queensland University, 2009), I was relieved and starting to think that maybe there is a little bit of a Digital Native side to me as I am quite familiar with making and using PowerPoint’s (Prensky, 2001). The main reason why I am familiar with the program is, particularly during secondary school, our assignments required us to have a visual aide when giving presentations to our class. Therefore, PowerPoint’s were usually my choice of a visual aide as they were engaging to my class members and easy to make. When thinking back to when I first started creating PowerPoint presentations for school assignments, I must say that I wasn’t actually taught how to use the program by my teacher, and basically taught myself by mucking around with the user friendly functions.

When making presentations, I prefer to start mine from scratch rather than use a template provided in the program, as I feel that it gives the presentation more of a personal touch and can be designed to suit the particular educational outcomes of the learning experience. Although PowerPoint has been around for years, it is still effectively used within classroom environments by our digital native students today (Prensky, 2001), and I think that the fact that students still find the program engaging shows just how valuable the program can be when using it in the learning environment. One of the main advantages of using a PowerPoint Presentation within the classroom environment, is the fact that the presentation can be designed in order to incorporate all students preferred learning styles; either visual, auditory or kinaesthetic. Therefore, PowerPoint’s help to create an effective learning environment as the learning experience can be of a direct and purposeful nature for students (Active Learning Online Team, 2000).

On the Moodle website I undertook the PowerPoint in the classroom tutorial based upon PowerPoint presentations (ACT360 Media Ltd, 2009), and although I am fairly familiar with the program I found that the tutorial was worthwhile as it allowed me to refresh my prior knowledge learnt about the program, and update my terminology in regard to the programs features. I must say that I usually only make basic PowerPoint presentations by using colourful writing, clip art and slide transitions to engage my audience, and I have always found inserting video clips to be a challenge. However, since undertaking this tutorial I was enabled to overcome my challenge and successfully insert a video clip into a presentation.

Reference List:
Active Learning Online Team. (2000). Why use active learning? Retrieved July 16, 2009, from
http://www.acu.edu/cte/activelearning/whyuseal2.htm

ACT360 Media Ltd. (2009). PowerPoint in the classroom. Retrieved July 23, 2009, from
http://www.actden.com/pp/

Central Queensland University (CQU). (2009). FAHE11001- Managing E-Learning: Moodle site. Rockhampton, QLD, Australia: Scot Aldred.

Prensky, M. (2001). Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants. Retrieved July 23, 2009, from
http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky%20%20Digital%20Natives,%20Digital%20Immigrants%20-%20Part1.pdf