PowerPoints can be wonderful tools to boost a presentation and keeps the audience's attention. They can also be distracting and too complicated. This article had several good points to help keep PowerPoints on the helpful side of presentations. One thing the article discussed was making the content worth 80% of the final grade. I like this suggestion for a couple of reasons. Like the article says, it takes the student's focus off of the fancy effects and keeps them focussed on their topic and research. I also think that the appearance of the presentation should be a factor as it is an important piece to the presentation and also a good skill to have. I also agree that teachers should create a rubric with clear expectations for the presentation. Students should have a clear picture of what they need to accomplish with their presentation.
One thing that I did not agree with the article on was the idea of providing a very strict rubric that dictates what the PowerPoint should look like. PowerPoints are blank canvases and can be molded into very creative presentations. I believe that by creating too strict of a rubric, the creativity is taken from the students. This creativity can also be taken by providing examples of presentations. I feel that examples can be helpful, but they need to be diverse and there should be several of them.
I feel that this article brought up several good points to keep in mind and has sparked thoughts about how to introduce PowerPoint presentations for my students. I found that there is much more to think about than I had originally thought. I can't keep track of the number of horrible PowerPoint presentations I have seen and now feel better equipped to create better PowerPoints myself as well as help teach my students to create better presentations.
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