POWERPOINT IS JUST THE STARTSCOTT TURNER

DIVISION OF COMPUTING, UNIVERSITY OF NORTHAMPTON,NORTHAMPTON NN2 6JD

The start of this mini-project came from two directions. The first watching student

presentations, finding what was being presented was very similar, and PowerPoint

is a useful tool but what else could students’ use?

The second influence was the developing ideas from Digital Storytelling (for

example University of Gloucestershire, 2009) and Machinima.

In two assessment in first-year modules the students were allowed to use

PowerPoint and many did, but they were also made aware of other tools they could

use such as Microsoft’s PhotoStory3 and MovieMaker and several adopted those.

Students were not penalised for using PowerPoint.  

Assessment 1: Describing number representation to a 15-year. Several of the

students decided to present this in a movie form.

 

4Initial Reflection

From a tutor point of view it was much more interesting to watch the presentation, but the

variety makes it slightly more challenging to mark., but you can still mark it based on the

content presented and how effective the content was communicated. Based on the

amount of work produced, the students seemed to engage with the task. Those that did

use PowerPoint also seemed to included more video within their presentations. For the

students it allowed some individuality in how they presented their work.

It was also interesting that though voice-over was available in all the methods used, very

few groups actually used it. Some of the students have posted their work on YouTube.

ReferenceUniversity of Gloucestershire (2009) Pathfinder [online] http://resources.glos.ac.uk/tli/lets/projects/pathfinder/index.cfm

Assessment 2: In a module concerned with problem-solving and they had to discuss how they

solved the problem of controlling a robot for a set task. The dynamic and visual nature meant

that many include video of the robot moving, but others took it further and the whole

presentation as a movie.

Please watch the video accompanying the presentation to see examples of these and other students ‘work.

Figure 2: Alternative Animation

Figure 1:Machinima Examples

Figure 3:Problem Solving Example