Power Point: Not just for presentations

I was not in class last week, due to a unplanned and unavoidable trip to sunny Florida.  Prior to leaving for my trip I met with my group to discuss a project we were doing that was goingto have us using powerpointas an interactive teaching tool rather than as a presentation tool.  This was odd to me as I had seen powerpoint used many times as a tool to help a presenter get his or her facts across to an audience in a short andconcise manner.  I was a little skeptical of how we were going to utilize this tool to teach and interact with students. 

     I met with my group on Sunday after returning from a 20 hour drive from Florida.  My group had completed about 10 slides of our project and I immediately was intrigued at how interesting and powerful our project could be.  We were able to utilize the slide format of powerpoint along with the hyperlinks to create and exercise for 1st grade students that was going to teach them about importantmembers of their community, and it was goingto be short, interesting, informative and interactive.  Powerpoint has now been another computer based tool that I have in my teachers tool bag to help me make education fun and interactive for students.  I am amazed and a little disappointed that I have not known the power of Microsoft word and powerpoint, as they are both user friendly and have been readily available to me for years.  I think that powerpoint as I knew it was boring and not very educational, but with a little extra hard work and proper use of all the tools in powerpoint it can be an amazing learning tool. 

     I have to say that this semester of Graduate school has been very challenging and some of the topics and things we have learned in the Technology in Education class have been very overwhelming.  I think that I have been able to gather and retain enough valuable and practical knowledge about  things like powerpoint, word, wikis, and podcasts.  I have a great foundation of technology based tools that are going to allow and enhance my ability to be successful as a student and even more so as an educator.  I look forward to the opportunity to utilize more of these tools as I enter classrooms, and hope I can continue to learn and expand my knowledge, so that I can keep up with the rapid pace of technology. 

     I think my technology class has also taught me another importatn lesson and that is teaching and technology have to go hand and hand for many students to learn and be succesful, so for me to be successful as a teacher, I have to embrace and continue to learna dn expand my knowledge of technology in hopes of enhancing and increasing the knowledge of the students.  I guess learning never stops, or rather should never stop, as the world and the tools we have as people is always changing and expanding.  I think it is exciting and terrifying all in the same .  Atleast I am not alone, because I know there are other in my class and around the world that are being pushed and taught new things that they are just as excited and terrified of as I am, and I think that is amazing.