Reaching all Learners: Presentation Tools for the Innovative Educator

Wednesday, March 10th 2010 by Katie Stansberry
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Visual presentation tools like PowerPoint and Keynote have been saddled with an unsavory reputation. Lazy presenters can use the visual tools as a crutch to improve lackluster presentations. However, the best presenters use visual presentation tools to clarify their topic and make information accessible to all types of learners.

The popular VARK model of learning styles identifies four different types of learners: visual, aural, reading/writing preference and kinesthetic or tactile. Find your learning style by filling out the online VARK Questionnaire.

My VARK scores:

  • Visual: 13
  • Aural: 2
  • Read/Write: 13
  • Kinesthetic: 2

Looking at my VARK scores it’s no wonder I enjoy working with PowerPoint and other presentations tools. Visual learners think in pictures and enjoy working with visual aids like diagrams, charts and graphs. Read/write learners are comfortable with words and like working with written, linear directions and communicating through text.

While aural learners easily pick up information presented verbally, without visual aids many other types of learners are easily lost. Read/write learners respond well to the linear nature of typical presentation tools, but even kinesthetic learners can be reached through the innovative use of presentation tools.

By putting activity instructions up on a slide, students are able to easily follow along while performing the activity. Presenting instructions using PowerPoint type of tool ensures that students don’t get too far ahead of their peers on their project. Instructions are doled out a bit at a time, rather than presented all at once in a handout.

Lately, I’ve been exploring ways to use Prezi, a new online presentation tool that allows the user to zoom from one idea to another on a limitless canvass of design space. Here’s a great example of a Prezi that shows a typical teacher’s day:

Day in the Life on Prezi

Prezi is currently free for students and educators, so give it a test drive if you’re tired of the same old slide shows.

Presentation tools can also be a great way for students to provide a gradable piece as the culmination of an individual or group project. Consider, for example, students who are asked to build a model bridge as part of a physics project. The end result of the bridge project could be a paper and series of diagrams describing various features of the model, or a student could present their project visually, using a program like Prezi to zoom in on certain features of the project and discuss the linear process of constructing the model.

How do you use presentation tools in education? Do you think they belong in the classroom, or do they get in the way of learning? Are you a PowerPoint addict?

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5 Comments

Tina

Thursday, 11th March 2010 at 9:55 am
 

I have a promethean board in my classroom. It’s been a great addition to my teaching practices and the student’s enjoy it as well. I use power point when appropriate, especially for jeopardy review games in math. Technology in the classroom is so appropriate to student learning now-a-days. I feel that it enhances their learning and offers great hands-on and visual learning opportunities for children, seeing as this generation is the Digital Native generation of children!

Celine

Thursday, 11th March 2010 at 1:37 pm
 

I just finished working on projects with my students in French. They used Powerpoint to present the results of their research concerning food, etiquette and restaurants in France. It is an interesting tool but I only see my students twice a week and building presentations is very time-consuming. How can we make presentation building more efficient?

Ann Darling

Thursday, 11th March 2010 at 2:03 pm
 

I think your choice of presentation tool has to relate to the task since both are visual. In PowerPoint your organization is mostly sequential and presented one after the other. With Presi you can have a way to support lateral and interconnected thinking as a web diagram might. Both are good just different

Shawn Moore

Thursday, 11th March 2010 at 8:37 pm
 

I have made the effort this semester to teach students how to make engaging presentations using tips from the site Presentation Zen. My students can easily pick apart presentations done by others that are not engaging or do not utilize powerpoint and prezi to the extent of their capabilities. When done well, powerpoints (et al) present information in dynamic and visually powerful way. When done poorly, they are the 21st century diorama – all sizzle and pop with no real depth or acquisition of knowledge.

Katie Stansberry

Thursday, 11th March 2010 at 9:05 pm
 

Celine: maybe you could produce about 2/3 of a PowerPoint and have students contribute the final parts. You’d guide them – maybe by creating the subject and images for a slide – then the students finish the project and do the presentation.

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