Week 5 Reflection on Powerpoints

This week I have taken a look at Powerpoint presentations. Powerpoint is something that I have had a lot of experience with having used it all the way through school and university. Therefore, I am quite comfortable using the program and am aware of what it can be used for. In my experience, power points have been used as a way to present information in a more interactive and exciting way rather than in an essay or more traditional format. Teachers and lecturers are these days using power point as an assessment task as it allows them to 'see more' from their students. Powerpoint allows students to use images, videos and sounds to add to the content of an assignment; something which they can not do in an essay or report. This can also work the other way, with teachers and lecturers frequently presenting lessons with Powerpoint presentations as they can use these to engage their learners more. Below is a chart showing what I believe to be the main positives, negatives and interesting points on Powerpoint presentations.

Positive	Negative	Interesting
·         Powerpoint can be very engaging and interactive when used efficiently ·         Ability to insert images, sounds and embed videos into a presentation ·         Very easy program to use, can be used by primary school students right through to university level ·         Excellent format for assessment tasks	·         Not a great tool for large chunks of detailed information- better for simple, short dot points of info	·         Ability to use animations makes for exciting presentations

One thing I had not done done before in a powerpoint was hyperlinking between slides. However, after having a play around this week I can see that this could be very useful in the future. Hyperlinking allows you to skip straight to a slide if you are looking for a specific bit of information in a presentation.  I have created a simple presentation on energy systems in the human body and have utilised hyperlinks in this presentation. You can find my powerpoint on my website by clicking here