What did they really learn in class yesterday?

I taught a day long PowerPoint class yesterday. As is usual, the participants ran the gamut from very beginner to fairly advanced. The class is designed to start from the dead bottom beginning and work toward intermediate skills. However, I assured the advanced users that they would surely pick up some valuable tips or tricks along the way - at least I always do no matter how many classes I take on a topic.

As folks filed out at the end of the day, one of the advanced users stopped to tell me how much she had learned in class and how happy she was that she stayed. At the beginning of class she realized she was in the wrong class and considered leaving. I was thrilled, of course! Out of curiosity, I asked her what were a few of the things she learned about PowerPoint. She enthusiastically told me nothing - she already knew all that stuff. The golden nuggets came in between the PowerPoint instruction. She said the websites I talked about were exactly what she needed (I wish I could remember all of them), and the tips on presentation design had never occurred to her. During the break one of the other participants helped her with a completely unrelated technology problem - one that no one at her school could tackle. She wanted to know what was on the docket for tomorrow!

I'm still thrilled that it was time well spent for her. And, I promised her I would share one of the sites we played with called SlideShare . This is a free site where educators have put their PowerPoint presentations in order to access them from anywhere and to share them with other educators. Go have a look. Search a topic you generally work with - I bet you'll find something. Additionally, if you have a great presentation you use with your students - share!

Another site we talked about was PowerPoint in the Classroom, a campy little site full of instruction and tutorials for both 2003 and 2007.

Good Times!
Lee Anne

The Best PowerPoint Advice a Girl Can Get

I know I have shared this hilarious video by Don McMillan with some of you already - I'm just a sharerer! Everybody loves to laugh, right? This guy will make you laugh at other people AND yourself. If you are a PowerPoint user, then you are a PowerPoint loser. He has graphs and bullet points to prove it!

I noticed on the calendar that we have a PowerPoint for the Classroom course coming up on Sept 20th. I'm just sayin', you might want to check it out. This class starts with beginning skills and finishes with some pretty sophisticated tricks. In addition to this day long class, we have several two hour classes throughout the semester in the evenings and on Saturdays.

If you are interested in other resources to help you shed your "PPT Loser" status, we shared some great ones in a previous post on being a PPT Loser. (We've been aware of this problem for some time. )

As always, if you have comments or questions, you know where to find me!

Thanks!
Lee Anne
lamorris@eighthfloor.org