Microsoft Office Power Point is a
presentation program developed for computers. In PowerPoint
text, graphics, movies, music, and other objects are inserted on
individual pages or "slides". You can make a Power Point
presentation for any topic and customize it with text, graphics, and
music to engage the audience.
Why use
Power Point in the classroom?
Power Point is particularly helpful
when used in the classroom as it can "hook" the learner and make
learning more fun. When using PPT's set to music you can
time your slide transitions and advance the slides automatically so
there is no need for you to be right next to your computer when the
show plays. PPT's also support the use of animations; you can
animate objects in PPT or insert movie clips to make your
presentations more fun.
To see examples
of Power Points you can use in Pre-K or Kindergarten classrooms
scroll down to
the resource sections below.
I want
to learn how to use Power Point, where do I start?
There are many great free tutorials
out there, here are two good ones:
I use Power Points in my classroom
on a daily basis. I show our Days of the Week song daily as
well as many other educational songs to go with our themes, see the
resources sections below for examples. Power Points are also
great for vocabulary, especially for ELL students.
What is
Photo Story?
(adapted from wikipedia)
Microsoft Photo Story is a free
application that allows users to create a
show and tell presentation from their digital photos. The
software allows the user to add narration and background music to
create a
Windows Media Video movie file with transitions and pan and zoom
effects. Once a photo story has been made it can be played on
Windows Media Player or burned to a
DVD or
CD. You can find a link to download Microsoft Photo Story
for free in the resources section below.
Why use
Photo Story in the classroom?
The reasons for using Photo Story
are similar to those of using Power Point, however there are some
significant differences, Photo Stories are "hands free" and support
narration. A Photo Story can be viewed without explanation or
a narrator. The creator can pre-record narration for each
slide and upload the Photo Story to a website or burned to CD or DVD to be
viewed by anybody at any time, the slides blend together using pan
and zoom effects and automatically advance to give the finished
product a more "movie like" appearance. A Photo Story is a
great way to showcase something you have been working on in class
with your students or to communicate with parents.
Examples of Photo
Stories created in Pre-K or Kindergarten classrooms:
I have used Photo Story
in my classroom with the parents. I have created an
Orientation/Welcome to School Photo Story to show to parents at our
"Meet the Teacher" night so I won't get flustered and forget what I
want to say (you can view it at the link below). It is hands free and pre-recorded so I can just
stand back with no worries. Also, I uploaded this Photo
Story to my website for any parents who weren't able to attend our
Meet the Teacher event, any
parents who do not have internet access, or new parents can sit and
watch it right in the classroom so we don't lose any instructional
time.
I have also created a Photo Story
about how parents can help their children at home. We used to
show a PPT during this annual event, but only about half the parents
could attend so I found myself repeating the presentation over and
over again. I would also lose track of what I was saying or
forget certain segments entirely. With Photo Story I was able
to insert digital pictures of the different homework activities and
narrate each slide with the exact words I wanted to say. The
finished project allows me to show the Photo Story on the night of
our event, hands and worry free. Just like the Meet the
Teacher story I can upload it my website for those who were not able
to attend or I can save it to my computer and show it to parents who
weren't able to attend without using up a lot of my valuable time.
It's also great for students who enroll in our class later in the
year.
I have recently started creating
Photo Stories to use as instructional tools in the classroom with
the students, this is very addicting! I created one explaining
how to wash your hands, the rules of our classroom, as well as
several to accompany our favorite songs or
stories. Obviously, I can't share the ones that have
stories or songs due to copyright issues. The biggest
advantage of using Photo Story over Power Point in the classroom is
that the audio is embedded in a Photo Story and not in a PPT.
Having the audio embedded makes it so much easier to show the
presentation on any computer without a lot of hoops to jump through. See the resources
section below for samples of some of our Photo Stories.
*Important
note: Copyrighted music will not be included in any
PPT's linked here. If you would like to add music to your PPT
please insert it from your own CD or download it from iTunes.
For instructions on how to insert music into a PPT click
HERE
