Teachers in Tiaras

It is obvious that technology is taking over the school systems. Most early elementary students already know how to work computers, gaming devices, and televisions very well. Powerpoint is a fun way for students to use technology to do homework, projects, study games, and more. These are tips according to Active Dad on how to make powerpoints fun in the classroom:

Make a comic book

Use PowerPoint’s ability to arrange pictures with captions to make a comic book.

Create a great looking quiz

Create a fun quiz with animated questions and answer reveals.

Make fab photo albums

Powerpoint has some cool photo effects hidden away that can help you make photo albums that show off your digital snaps in fantastic, fun ways.

Make a great-looking timeline

Timelines are a useful way of representing stuff that happens in a sequence. We have used them for homework projects as diverse as English Lit and history and to make personal timeline posters that show key events in kids’ lives.

Embed YouTube video in Powerpoint

Embedding video in Powerpoint used to be a pian, but you can now stick a YouTube clip right in a Powerpoint slide. Just grab the embed code from the video’s YouTube page (click the ‘Embed’ button underneath the video to get it and copy that to the clipboard. In Powerpoint, click the Insert tab, then Video and select ‘Video from web site..’ Paste the embed code in and the video will appear.)

Make a video from your presentation

You can save your presentation as a video file that can be played on a PC, uploaded to YouTube of converted to DVD. Just click on File then Save & Send then Create Video. YOu can choose the quality/size of the video and the length of time to insert between slide transitions before saving the video as a .WMV file.

Add transitions to your pages

A dull presentation can be given a makeover with a few cool page transitions. Click the Transitions Tab and select More to choose from a variety of effects like Page Turning or Ripple.

Instant Laser Pointer

Hold down the CTRL key and the left mouse button to turn the mouse pointer into a glowing red laser pointer dot that you can use to point out important areas of the screen, or just waggle around distractingly. You can select the color of the pointer using the Set Up Slideshow button on the Slideshow tab.

Insert a live web page

Powerpoint doesn’t support embedding live websites into presentations, but you can download a free add-in called Live Web that will do the trick.

Do quick image editing without leaving Powerpoint

You don’t have to use image editing software like Photoshop to tweak images in your presentation. Powerpoint has some quite powerful tools built in. Click on an image and select the Picture Tools tab that appears. This contains buttons for Crop, Corrections, and Remove Background among other effects.

All of these tips and descriptions as well as handy guides on how to do/create each of them can be found here.