The Power of Presenting!

The use of presentations to assist teaching and learning have become increasingly popular in recent years. The most obvious application of choice for making a presentation is Microsoft PowerPoint. Personally I don't think I've ever seen a presentation during lessons that was not made on this app. Naturally, it's what I would go to first, and it was how I taught my first few lessons on my placement. Here is the presentation I used to teach my very first A Level Psychology class!






The lesson went really well, but I couldn't help thinking how I would have managed to get all of that information across without using PowerPoint? The following week, I was introduced to two new presentation apps, Prezi and Nearpod. Prezi seemed to make presentations much more exciting! The quick movements and the mass of different templates made me think about how boring PowerPoint presentations can be! I went on to create a fabulous Prezi for another A Level Psychology class, that I will be teaching on Wednesday (I will blog about how Prezi worked for me). I am going to use this Prezi for a lesson plenary, to recap what was covered in the lesson. I'm also going to ask the students what they think of it. I definitely intend to use Prezi in my teaching, however I have some concerns that presentations might be a bit too "busy" and distracting, but I also think it's a welcome change from PowerPoint. Here is the Prezi I will be using!




I think Prezi is much more fun and exciting to use, and more visually stimulating! Another concern, however, is that within the subjects I teach, large amounts of information are required to be transferred, therefore the small circles and limited space suggest that Prezi will only be useful for things like starters, plenaries and small amounts of information. This isn't necessarily a bad thing because I think a lot of students will be willing to have a quick change from PowerPoint now and again! As for Nearpod, I found this great as I was learning about it, but thinking in practical terms led me to conclude that I don't think I would use it within my teaching, mainly because I teach in classrooms where only one computer is present. However, I would consider booking a computer room in the future (maybe when I become an actual proper teacher!), to use Nearpod and to see if it benefits learning. All in all, I still think PowerPoint is the best for presentations because it's so easy to use, but I have also discovered a love for Prezi and its exciting presentation style!