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!

My personal experiences of technology and learning

I honestly don't remember using much technology within my education to date, particularly in the earlier years. My primary school only had computers when I was around year 4 or 5, and in secondary school we mainly learned from textbooks or teacher talk. I never found ICT lessons enjoyable. This is rather surprising because my father is a computer whizz and works with them every day. I'm not sure if it was the way the lessons were delivered, or if I just had a genuine lack of interest. We'll go with the latter. ICT is the only subject that gave me a C grade at GCSE, ruining my clean run of A's and the occasional B's from other subjects. I just didn't enjoy the whole "do this and take a screenshot to put in a file" thing. At university, technology was widely used as a learning aid within my lectures. Unfortunately, this was indeed "death by PowerPoint". Every lecture was the same. We'd all file in, the lecturer would read off the slides, and then put the presentation on Blackboard for everyone who didn't bother attending. Not the best teaching strategy, in my opinion. Despite this, Blackboard did come in rather handy. Very similar to Moodle, Blackboard is a virtual learning environment used to share files between lecturers and students, and also to submit assignments. I also used the internet as a learning aid throughout my degree, using journal databases such as Google Scholar for essays, and I found this extremely helpful. I still feel that the world of technology for teaching is only just beginning, and it's exciting, however I still fear that technology might attempt to replace the invaluable student-teacher relationship, and I hope that it does not take over the point of what it means to be a "teacher". Teachers teach students, they do not put a video on and allow that to teach students, or make a presentation and allow that to teach students. They should just merely be aids, and not replace the true intent of the transfer of information from teachers to students.

Mighty Microsoft

Pretty much my entire collection of technology experiences involve Microsoft. Without its software, I definitely would not have been able to complete my GCSE's, A Levels, or my degree. Microsoft Word, in particular, has been an incredible aid to my education. Every assignment, every document, every piece of written work has been completed using Word, and it is the only Microsoft application that I am completely confident with. PowerPoint is another one of my favourites, especially for teaching. Making a presentation is simple and can be made to look professional and interesting easily, which is why I love PowerPoint. Excel, on the other hand, I actively dislike. My poor father has spent hours showing me how it works and what it's good for, but I just don't like it. Yes, it can do wonderful things, but I just find it over-complicated and boring. I'm more than happy to try though, so if anyone can show me a good use for Excel, go ahead! The same can be said for Publisher. I don't even know what it's supposed to do! I don't use Microsoft for emails either, I wouldn't know how. If I get a chance over the next few weeks, I intend to have a go at some Microsoft applications and I'll write about what I think of them and what I have learned, if anything. I'm hoping to gain some confidence with these apps, particularly Excel, because I suppose it's an essential app to understand and use, and I think if I understood how, I could use it within teaching, for marking and similar tasks. As it stands at the moment, Word and PowerPoint are definitely my favourite Microsoft apps and the only ones that I find useful! As always, this may change!

Blog Envy!

Before starting this blog, I had a little look online to see if any other Psychology teachers use blogging. I came across a blog by Caroline Rigby, called "Psychology teaching ideas". It's a blog for teachers of AS and A2 Psychology. Being a teacher in Wales, we use WJEC, but the writer of this blog uses the AQA exam board, therefore not everything she writes about will be relevant to Psychology teachers in Wales. Her blog, in my opinion, is great. She uses real-life examples to explain Psychological concepts, for example the minority influence in Social Psychology (https://carolinerigby.wordpress.com/2015/09/18/minority-influence-and-social-change-jamie-olivers-latest-campaign/). The blog also contains teaching ideas, advice for trainee teachers, and also posts on specific psychological studies that are taught in the A Level syllabus. I think this blog will be useful for me to follow because its ideas are contemporary and it could provide me with new strategies and teaching methods. However, not many of the posts mention using technology to teach Psychology, therefore I'm not sure how useful this blog will be with regards to using technology in the Psychology classroom, but I will definitely use it to check out the latest news. The layout of this blog is also rather plain and uninteresting, making it look quite unattractive to new readers. Despite this, the content is interesting and useful for teachers. Here is a link to the blog - https://carolinerigby.wordpress.com/

The Beginning of a Reflective Blog!

The aim of this blog is to assess the use of various ICT applications as teaching aids. I am a student teacher and I am keen to sample all of the new and exciting applications in the world of technology, to see if they can actually make a difference to teaching and learning. The blog will be reflective in nature. As a teacher, writing reflectively is essential because it is a way to evaluate what has been done, to see what can be done to improve further. Over the next few weeks, I will be trying a number of different applications to see if they could be used to aid my teaching. I will reflectively evaluate the applications, and I will finally decide which applications I will use when I return to the classroom. I am surprisingly excited to use some different apps, although a little nervous as I don't see myself as being completely confident with ICT, but I'm hoping that can change! I hope that by the end of this term, I will be able to confidently use a number of new apps as teaching aids, and be able to make my lessons a lot more interesting and engaging. I'm feeling very optimistic and excited to play around with technology to see what it can do! Feel free to follow my journey from a clueless student to a high-tech computer geek! Okay, maybe that's a bit too dramatic. Watch this space!