Using Powerpoint by @HinTai_Ting

Name: Hin-Tai
Twitter:  @HinTai_Ting
Sector:  Secondary
Subject: Maths
Position: Teacher
5 Bits of Advice About: Using powerpoint

1. Enable Presenter View (Google it) and get familiar with it. It is superior in every way to the ‘duplicate view’ that most teachers seem to use.
2. Don’t spend ages animating things in a Powerpoint if they’d just be quicker to draw by hand on a whiteboard.
3. Don’t write what you’re going to say onto a Powerpoint slide. Work out what you’re going to say, and then just say it.
4. When you are about to explain something, display a ‘black’ screen (press ‘b’ while in slideshow view). Their eyes will magically shift to you.
5. Use the Powerpoint as a reminder of your planned lesson, e.g. slides with nothing more than one/two-word prompts for your activities and teaching points.

Designing Good Powerpoints by @udagawasensei

Name: Kenichi Udagawa
Twitter:@udagawasensei
Sector:  Secondary
Subject: RE
Position: Teacher
5 Bits of Advice About:  Designing good powerpoints

1. Piling endless images on every slide in a Powerpoint will take a long time, make the presentation over-busy and won’t add much, if anything, to the learning.
2. Font choice should be based on readability. Choose a font that is going to be easy to read even for a kid sitting at the back of the classroom.
3. The clearer you make what you want the students to do, the easier it will be for them to do it. Give them sentence starters, or examples to work from.
4. A white background is nothing to be ashamed of. Simple, clean and avoids fussing over themes etc.
5. Try to establish conventions that means students will know what to do automatically. e.g. have a consistent slide design for exam questions with a timer on it.

Teaching Powerpoints by @evenbetterif

Name: Kate McCabe
Twitter: @evenbetterif
Sector:  Secondary
Subject: English and Media
Position: KS4 Lead and Head of Media
5 Bits of Advice About: Teaching powerpoints

1. Keep it Clean. Keep it simple. Students cannot process too much information in one slide. Keep it to the absolute essentials.
2. Make it Visual. A visual image is memorable, thought provoking, creates clear link between ideas and text and best of all makes students work harder to make that link.
3. Make it Clear. Your instruction or task command should be clearly stated so that students are in no doubt of what you want them to do.
4. Keep it Consistent. Embed clear routines in your resources that students can learn to expect. It creates that safe, positive environment you are trying to establish.
5. Model Don’t forget to include the text for modelling of your annotation even though students have it on paper. Alternatively, ‘live’ write your model straight onto the slide.