Forum 14: Teaching with Technology (Finish by Week 12)

Download the Teaching with Technology Case Study Article. (PDF)

In a post to this forum respond to the questions after the study. Alternatively, you can respond on a separate page and add that to your post.

Discussion Questions Post

1. What advice would you give Sandy about choosing topics for these presentations?

Sandy should do more research into what type of technology teachers in the grades of K-12 use and hopefully find a technology he is able to use well so he could teach it.

2. What steps might Sandy have taken to prepare for his presentations after he had topics?

Sandy could have made a flowchart to order his thoughts on his chosen topics.

3. Can you suggest methods for keeping an audience interested throughout a presentation?

Engage and interact with the audience by asking questions. Do not read the slides verbatim.

4. Have you ever viewed a very good PowerPoint presentation? What made it so good?

The presenter interacted and engaged the learner, the presentation had concise chucks of text and graphics in relation to the topic.

5. Have you ever sat through a poor PowerPoint presentation? Can you describe the experience?

Yes, many times a lot of the PowerPoint Presentations never interacted with the audience, the text was too small to read and overcrowding of text made the presentations difficult to read. Horrible background and foreground colors that should not go together.

6. What do you think of Sandy's handouts? What else might he have done?

The handouts are an ok idea however 94 pages is a lot of pages to be printing out and going through. If printing out handouts give a brief overview of the topic.

7. What could Sandy have done to encourage more participants to submit evaluation forms?

Send an email to the participates with a link to an online fillable form.

8. Can you list some of Sandy's presentation problems and suggest possible solutions?

Problem: Audience are not paying attention

Solution: Ask questions and keep audience engaged.

Problem: The topics might have had too much information and learner feels overwhelmed.

Solution: Display short chunks that are easy to read and comprehended.

Problem: Not many graphics

Solution: Have at least one meaningful graphic or animation treatment on a slide.

Problem: Minimal Questions and Minimal Opportunities to ask Questions.

Solution: Plan out where you would like to stop to check for understanding.

Plan on the audience having questions if they don’t have questions ask some to the audience.