Prairielands

January 23, 2007   Wow what a fun evening.  Dr. Frick ask me to present the multiple uses of PowerPoint to a Writing With Technology class she is teaching.  There were 12 participants both inservice teachers and preservice teachers.  One of the preservice teachers presented the does and don’ts of designing a PowerPoint.  I got to do the fun part and show examples of how teachers use PowerPoint to introduce themselves and their curriculum to classes the first day of class, how teachers use it to provide notes and make those notes available to students who are homebound for whatever reason, examples of using PowerPoint in a review game-format to help students review.  The most fun was to demo how some of the teachers used PowerPoint to present their written pieces they did in the summer 2006 open institutes.  I also had examples of students’ PowerPoint presentations as a results of researching a particular topic.  After technical difficulties we went on to write a “Bring Me” poem for poemcrazy by Susan Goldsmith Wooldridge.  Technical difficuties always happen when you think you have a presentation working perfectly on your home or office computer.  Then lab computers just don’t work the same way.  Participants selected an object to write about.  They took a digital picture of that object and then used PowerPoint to present their piece.  I will try to get permission to post some of those on the class web site.  I am a techie junky.  I love helping students use images to enhance their writing.              

I am looking forward to presenting to this group again.  They are a great group to work with.  They are part of the first group to apply for PLWP’s graduate certificate in teaching of writing.  See http://www.missouriwestern.edu/prairielands/ for more information about that certificate.    Mary