One of the presentation tools that has taken a lot of heat over the last while is Powerpoint.  It seems like just yesterday that I was spending hour after hour creating slides, with clip-art images drawn from the Internet, that I hoped would become the focus of my classroom discussions.  The problem was, the slides themselves became too much of the focal point during class, and interaction between me and the students diminished.

Take a moment to access the video below.  It illustrates how Powerpoint can be integrated into a presentation, but does not overpower it, or BECOME the presentation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i68a6M5FFBc

An important takeaway for me after viewing this video was the advice that you should plan out your presentation on a piece of paper BEFORE creating a Powerpoint.  That way, you'll avoid letting Powerpoint itself determine the way your presentation flows from one idea to another.  It's almost as if the program itself is leading us to that dead zone we've all experienced.

Given students' short attention spans, instructors need to shake it up every 10-15 minutes or so, by making use of other presentation techniques, along with Powerpoint, e.g. writing on a whiteboard, circulating a handout etc.  If I could learn how the creators of this video do their artwork onscreen, it would also augment the opportunity for me to download some of the course content into online resources that students could review in advance of the class, thereby freeing up face time for the higher order learning challenges we all want to have our students confront.