powerpoint reflection

The lesson I presented was about two poems writing during World War I. The poems are "Dulce et Decorum Est", by Wilfred Owen, and "The Soldier" by Rupert Brooke. The lesson begins with an overview of World War I and the background of the two poets. Then the class will read the two poems out loud together, and discuss the meanings of each poem and how the poems deliver different messages. The final slide before the credits contains some ideas students should take away from the lesson, although they will discuss and brainstorm many more ideas about the two poems. The main idea is that history and literature are intertwined, and one cannot be viewed without the context of the other.

I used the narration feature in my PowerPoint to read "The Soldier" out loud. I had to record it as a separate sound, because the narration tool would not work for me. It kept cutting off the narration at about 20 seconds. I tried recording "Dulce et Decorum Est" as well but I was cut off. I watched the screencast that my classmates did about narration on PowerPoint and I looked for help online, but I could not determine why it kept cutting off my narration before I was finished. I was following all of the steps correctly. The difficulty I had with the narration frustrated me, because I would have added more narration in the PowerPoint than just one slide. I also used custom animation on a few slides so each idea would appear separately on the screen. So if I was giving some direct instruction, I could have each point appear on the screen when I was talking about it.

Before doing this presentation, I was not aware of the many features that PowerPoint had to offer. I did not realize how user-friendly it was either. The PowerPoint screencasts gave me some tips on how to use PowerPoint, like how to record the narration. I learned how to create custom animations for a slide and I attempted to record narration. I did not have any difficulty finding the tools I wanted to use. I also liked the array of slide backgrounds and layouts; I found one that was simple and not distracting from my presentation. However, if you wanted your presentation to be more colorful, there was that option as well, which I appreciated.


A lesson can be enhanced with a PowerPoint because it allows people who are visual learners the opportunity to view something and this may aid their understanding. As a teacher, you can place your key points and ideas on a PowerPoint to help your students in their notetaking. Then students will be listening to the teacher, not writing down everything they say without paying attention. Also, teachers do not have to be constantly writing on the chalkboard. They can face their students and interact with them, since all their important points are already in the PowerPoint slides. Teachers can also use photographs, charts, graphs, or other graphics to enhance their presentation. For example, I included some pictures of World War I in my presentation to help students give a feel for the time period in which the poems were written. You can also include video clips embedded into your presentation to show your students.