Look inside the classrooms of almost any high school and you'll find most teachers using some kind of slide presentation software to support their lectures. The software may be PowerPoint, SMART Notebook, or even the occasional transparency on an overhead projector, but the teacher almost always stands at the front clicking a remote while the students copy each bullet into their notes.
There are certain advantages to using presentation software when delivering a lecture. The slides serve as a reminder, allowing the teacher to ensure key points are addressed every time the lecture is delivered and an electronic presentation makes it easy to add images, sounds, and other media that would be difficult when writing on the board. The ability to project images and information can also help support students who are visual, rather than auditory learners. Finally, files from most presentation software can easily be uploaded to a class website providing access for students who were not in class or who need a refresher.
A good lecturer knows, however, that the best presentations have some kind of interactive element to them. To keep my students engaged, I use a number of common techniques, such as inserting think-pair-share activities or asking students to vote for answers by a show of hands or other techniques. I've even added a bit of tech-savy to the show of hands by inserting hyperlinks for each possible answer, embedding brief, clickable quizzes within my slides. When students participate in these efforts, it gives them an opportunity to digest the information covered so far, leading to greater retention. These checks also make it harder for students to mentally check out. Just copying information from a slide requires minimal attention, so providing feedback opportunities keeps students alert.
The problem is it can be pulling teeth to get more than a few students to participate voluntarily in these efforts. Web-based apps such as Poll Everywhere and GoSoapBox can engage more students by having them answer polls and quizzes via text or any device with an Internet connection. Both systems have a desktop app which makes it possible to embed the live results in a PowerPoint slide, making it possible for the students and teacher to watch responses in real time.
Other interactive tools can also keep students checked in during a presentation. Whenever my students see the familiar red play button that means a YouTube video, they perk up, knowing that they are about to see a demonstration or experiment we couldn't do in the classroom. Links to online simulations also get my students' attention while letting them see something not normally visible in the classroom or providing me with a means to project onto the board a demonstration I couldn't otherwise make visible to an entire classroom.
For all their detractors, slide presentations have a place in the classroom. The trick is to get teachers (including myself) to apply principles of good presentations as well as to utilize tools that allow their students to get involved in the lecture.
Here's my effort to design a more interactive lecture. Note that several slides are intended to use Poll Everywhere, which requires an application running in the background to give live results during a presentation. I've inserted short videos and screenshots to show how Poll Everywhere would be used during this presentation without requiring the desktop app.
And, for good measure, here's materials for a project where I have my 9th grade Physical Science students prepare a presentation.
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