PowerPoint slide master

Many students come to my class feeling "comfortable" with PowerPoint so my goal is to teach them some news skills to keep the focus on content or make formatting and animating quicker, easier and consistent.

One of the ways that I do this is to teach my students how to create their own original design template by using the slide master. The preformatted design templates are overused and not very interesting - plus they usually don't match the topic. I teach students how to go to View / Master / Slide Master and design a template from scratch. I encourage students to choose background colors, designs or images that match their topic.

For example, one of my students in presenting a PowerPoint all about surfing so she found a cool wave photograph that we lightened and place as the background of her slides. Then she chose complimentary colors and fonts for the titles and body paragraphs. She included a navigation bar on the left of the slide and a small image near the title. This slide was saved as a design template and then could be applied to the PowerPoint slides (the one that was written in Word).

The student is now more than half done since all the text and slide formatting is completed. The next steps include changing the slide layouts, transitions and adding images/sounds/movies.

Animations for titles and body paragraphs can be added to the slide master as well as "actions" to link the navigation bar to individual slides.

I asked students to give opinions about the use of the slide master:

• It makes it easier to format all the slides at once.
• You can match your design to your topic.
• It makes the show more professional looking - but I still like change some of the background designs for some slides.
• I probably won't go search for design templates online anymore - I'll just make my own.
• I used to spend a lot of time animating all of the text. Completing the animations in the slide master saves TONS of time.
• I like using the slide master and Word outline together - it's so much easier.
• I never knew that you could add action buttons or hyperlinks in PowerPoint to make the projects more interactive.
  

The "cool" factor of PowerPoint

Students always seem to get excited when a teacher explains that they are going to use PowerPoint for a project. There is something about PowerPoint that is creative, entertaining and appealing to kids.

My concern has always been that all of the focus on the "fluff" of PowerPoint will lead to PowerPointlessness. PowerPoint is a presentation tool so why is the content and message seem to be lost in the production?

I have come up with a solution that counteracts the focus on formatting and not on content. I teach students how to write out all of the content for their PowerPoint slides in a Word outline and focus on the information before I allow them to open up the PowerPoint program.

Today I taught the students how to change to outline view and place all slide titles on Level 1 of the outline and all body content on Level 2 of an outline. Students spent several days researching their topic and writing out the information on the outline. Resources were cited right on the outline and the focus was clearly what information was to be conveyed in the presentation.

When the students completed the outline, they opened PowerPoint and then opened the Word outline IN PowerPoint - and presto - all the text was placed on the appropriate slides. The students reaction is the best part - they loved it. They were amazed that these two software pieces work together seamlessly.

In class we discussed the value of what we just accomplished. Students commented:

• You can focus on the writing and not get distracted by playing with animations.
• Its easier to keep your train of thought when working in outline view.
• You can write the outline at home and then come to school to work on PowerPoint
• You must set up the outline correctly otherwise this process doesn't work.
• It was cool to see all the text on the correct slides.
• I never knew this could be done before.
• I love learning new shortcuts!
  

Cycle Three Plans

During the next cycle I will continue to provide lessons where the students create authentic projects for authentic audiences – but students will have more choice during this cycle.

After reviewing the National Technology standards for students and my scope and sequence of skills, I determine that students still exposure to more desktop publishing skills (columns, section breaks, drop cap, customized borders) but also review some general paragraph formatting skills (indents, before/after spacing, styles, and outlines). My plan is to list these technology skills for the students and give them some options on how we can use them in a project and let them decide as a class how to demonstrate their understanding. Some of the options will be: a class newspaper, a basic website, Word tutorials, etc. By allowing students to choose the format of their project I am hoping to increase ownership and engagement in learning.

We have not covered any PowerPoint skills this semester so the final capstone project of the term will be an integrated PowerPoint and Excel project. Students will be given the opportunity to choose any educational topic that is of interest to them and one that they could teach their classmates about. First they will determine prior knowledge by designing an Excel survey about their topic. Once they have collected that information, students will design an interactive PowerPoint presentation on their chosen topic. Direct instruction of the following PowerPoint skills will be covered: opening a Word outline in PowerPoint, creating a slide master, custom animation, action buttons, and adding sound or video to PowerPoint. Each PowerPoint project from the class will be linked together on a main project so all students can view each other’s projects.

The final days of class instruction will incorporate a “Choose your own Techventure” time – where students can pick any type of technology that we have at school and work individually or in groups to explore the software tools.

Observation - Take this project seriously ...

The Problem:
Whenever I need to tell a student to "take their project seriously - this isn't entertainment" I know that the student IS NOT engaged in an authentic project. Too often I see my students "having fun" with their assignments. To me this means that they are bored with the assignment and as a way to entertain themselves they add silly or humerous aspects to their projects as a way to engage their friends to look at their projects.

The Assignment:

The students could choose between two concepts for their final project in Computer Applications class:

• One was to create an original business and make a business plan and use PowerPoint to describe the various aspects of the business. The technical skills included: Using the slide master to create an original template, integrating Word outlines and PowerPoint, using a variety of layouts to include charts, diagrams, and text, and basic animations. The content focus was to write in a persuasive way to accuarate describe the business and engage the reader to explore the various aspects of the business.
• The other project choice was to create a PowerPoint to review course material from another class to help students prepare for their final exams. The technical skills included: Using the slide master to create an original template, integrating Word outlines and PowerPoint, using a variety of layouts to include charts, diagrams, and text, and basic animations. The content focus was on explaining (and/or testing) content material in a clear and accurate manner.

Students were encouraged to make the PowerPoint presentations engaging and interactive by using "action buttons" in the presentation so that the view was actively engaged in moving through the project instead of passively sitting back and watching the presentations.

The Results:
Students who chose the course review project seemed to take the assignment more seriously than the students who "made up" the business plan. Their projects were focused on the content material and their goal was to make a presentation that would actually help a classmate review for the upcoming final exam. Many also included short quizzes that asked the student to choose the correct answer.

Two of the students who made the business plan had to change their original idea because the business they chose wasn't appropriate for the project.

While most of the students liked their business topics and were engaged in their PowerPoint topic, I felt that several students thought the assingment was silly and did not seem engaged in their project. It wasn't until the end of the assignment and students went around to each other's computers to view the projects that some students commented that some projects were better than others because they had a purpose or were well made.

One student in particular engaged many students in his project because of the high-interest topic (a travel business that focused on James Bond movies) and the visual "eye candy" of his presenations (music, video and photos from the movies).

Conclusion:
This outcome of these projects has shown me that students NEED an authentic audience in projects otherwise the students don't see the purpose or value in what they are doing. Even though the assignment was a simulation - it still felt "fake" - and the some of the students were not engaged in the project or they were engaged but the quality of the project was poor.

The challenge is to create open-ended projects that are authentic, but still at the same time meet the technology goals of the class.

Observation - Lecturing vs. Doing

The Problem:
It is getting to the end of the term and I am running out of time. I still have several skills that I want the students to be able to do for their final projects but I haven't had time to cover yet. This quarter is one week shorter than the first and Food Drive and holiday events have cut into my class time. I normally give students an opportunity to practice several PowerPoint skills before they are required to use them on their final projects but I am short on time. What to do ....?

The Solution:
I am not completely happy with my solution but I have decided to have my students make a PowerPoint presentation about "How to make an effective PowerPoint presenation". This will give me opportunity to "teach" some skills ABOUT PowerPoint and the students will include this information in their projects. They will also get a chance to PRACTICE some of the skills in the project at the same time.

The Result:
At first the students seemed to like the idea that they were making their own tutorial about how to use PowerPoint. They like learning how to make screenshot to show examples of what they were writing about. But after 5 days of repeating the same thing over and over again, I could tell that some of the student were getting bored with the material. I am guilty of trying to cram too many concepts into one lesson. I should have just chosen 2-3 unique skills (ie: varying slide layouts, using the slide master, and features of custom animation) and let the students "discover" many of the other skills on their own.

I fall into the habit too often that if I don't teach it to them - they won't discover the information. I really need to embrace the constructivist point of view and create an environment where my students can discover and explore various elements of technology skills and provide them with guidance and resources to uncover the information. My mantra needs to be "guide on the side" not "sage on the stage".