PowerPoint as an Instructional Tool

PowerPoint (and other such presentation style programs, Keynote, ect...) have vast potential for instructional purposes, both in and out of the the classroom. The past several decades have seen an increased focus of technology as a teaching and presentation tool. The modern PowerPoint has a huge array of tools at your disposal when putting together a presentation.

PowerPoint can be used to make lectures/lessons more interesting and easily tangible. Some students are visual learners and as such it is our responsibility to cater to their individual needs. Continuing in this vein, audio can easily be added for students who need to hear the same instructions multiple times.

A bank of easy to make PowerPoint instructional presentations would be an indispensable tool for teaching students/peers how to use new technology, applications, or processes.

I have been using PowerPoint, or such applications like HyperCard, since middle school. Over the years I have seen some awe worthy and outstanding presentations which I have attempted to emulate. I feel very comfortable using PowerPoint for various purposes and in various contexts.

Carbon Footprint

Hopefully, by now, everyone has seen An Inconvenient Truth, watched a nature documentary about, read an article on, talked with someone about, or at least heard about climate change, and humanity's role in that change. Every year, every day, we as a race actively, whether knowingly or unknowingly, impact the environment around us. Right now this very second, as I type this, or you read this, we are negatively impacting the world's climate.

One of the major topics of interest lately has been CO2, and other greenhouse gas emissions. We as humans produce CO2 in a variety of ways. Every time we breath, we take in mixed air and expel primarily CO2. Carbon Dioxide (CO2) is also produced by humans when we burn any type of fuel (gas, diesel, oil, coal, wood, ect...) for a wide variety of purposes. The chief purpose of which, is energy production. All of the products we use and consume daily result in some sort of energy production/use, and therefore put more carbon into the atmosphere.

I recently decided to try and figure out how much of an impact I was having (i.e. my carbon footprint) on the climate/planet/environment. I was easily able to find 5 free, and there's plenty out there, websites that provided carbon footprint calculators. I tried each of these calculators. I used the same (or as close to it as allowable) information in each calculator. The results varied somewhat, but all gave some sort of result listed in number of tons of carbon emissions per year (tons of CO2/year).

The site who's calculator I liked the most was CarbonFootprint.com.

The five calculators are as follows:

CarbonFootprint.com's Calculator

ClimateCrisis.net's Calculator

The EPA's Calculator

Nature.org's Calculator

BP's Calculator

Try them out! Test for yourself!

EduPool 1.0
by Lodi Unified Schools

Grade/Age level: All ages.

Subject Area(s): Spelling(English), Math

Platform: Mac OS X

About EduPool 1.0:

Kids of all ages can learn to read and spell 700 of the most used words in English. Basic addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division skills can be improved by counting objects on the screen.

Engaging and fairly entertaining program. Has a surprising amount of content to choose from. Good for beginning spellers and math students. Works great as a basic mathematics refresher for anyone.
Simple graphics, straight forward design.

EduPool 1.0 is available for free download from:
Apple - Downloads
EduVentures

World Continents Quizzes
by Sheppard Software

Grade/Age level: Early Elementary; great geography refresher for anyone!

Subject Area(s): Geography

Platform: Online Application

About World Continents Quizzes:

"By using Sheppard Software's learning games, you will gain a permanent mental map of the world, its continents and geography. This knowledge is the key to learning more about the wonderful world around you." -Sheppard Software

This online geography quiz game provides an interesting and engaging means by which to learn about the world around you. Game includes a Tutorial and three different difficulty levels (ranging from Beginner to Expert). The quiz includes educational information about each continent or ocean on Earth.

Note to educators/parents: Sheppard's website is a safe environment, but there are advertisements and web banners/links on nearly every page, including the game page itself. Be aware of kids possibly linking to other websites.

In addition to this game, Sheppard Software has a multitude of other games in Geography and every other major subject.




Worlds Continents Quiz is available for free online play at:
Sheppard Software

One to One

The video in class I felt was very eye opening. It gave a good view into the many different aspects of constant computer, internet, and technology use in a working educational setting. Personally, I was super excited and impressed to see technology being used in such a prominent and effective way. For someone such as myself, who is big on computers, it really reinforced the notion that there is so much to gain by the effective use of such technology. I think the key word is effective, and this is something that was touched on some in the video. In a small district, like in the video, they allowed students access to gaming programs and other social applications, messenger, ect..., during breaks and downtime. It didn't seem to be that big of a focus issue for the students and they had a good system down for when it was appropriate to use non-educational applications. In a larger district, say in Fairbanks, there would be a whole new set of related and compounded challenges. Effective use would ideally be using the laptops/technology as seamlessly as possible within the current curriculum, with room to grow and expand upon new options brought forth by the laptops.

I drool over the prospect of having a future classroom where every one of my students has an internet ready laptop in front of them. In a world that is ever changing and ever advancing, I think it is essential for their success to become familiar with the internet, laptops, and other such technologies, as soon as possible. What better environment to do this than school, in a classroom? Technology can be great, but we must also realize that it can be no substitute for human interaction and traditional classrooms. People must be prepared for the future, and the one to one laptop program can be used as a keystone portion of that. We just need to keep in mind that we are biological human animals and these are our offspring.
Question: How far should we take technology...?