Number 19: Prezi = Presents

Explain how multimedia technologies can be used to support and enhance what students learn, how they learn and when and where their learning takes place.

                Presentation tools are used in classrooms and working environments world-wide (Nichols, 2003).  As an ICT the most widely recognized of the presentation tools is power point. The ability to create instructional and learning slides from within Microsoft office make it an easily accessible and usable tool for teachers.  Where once learning was based on blackboards, writing and the occasional image, today’s classroom is all about presenting.  Teachers need to be able to integrate a variety of modes within the one lesson to demonstrate and reflect ethical, effective and appropriate ways in which digital technologies can be used (The New Media Consortium (NMC), 2005).  Students are used to working with several technologies at once and are familiar with building their thinking based on these strategies (Nichols, 2003). They can often be listening to music on you-tube, connecting to facebook and researching interesting or funny articles on the web.  This is the way of the digital natives (Prensky, 2001).  Now more than ever in order to maintain their interest in a subject they need to be entertained.   As teachers it is our role to build an environment that fosters their desire to want to create and use new technologies to present their ideas (The New Media Consortium (NMC), 2005).  This is where the usefulness of presentation tools can be best demonstrated.