Pros and Cons Teaching via PowerPoint

There is a hype nowadays about using presentations and multimedia content in the classroom and Microsoft PowerPoint is the most popular presentation software widely adopted. Despite that there are other tools like Prezi or Keynote, not all the teachers have the time to innovate or start learning a new technology. Here we will cover a few pros and cons while teaching via PowerPoint.

Using PowerPoint you can add a new dimension to the learning experience and keep your students stand up. You can use PowerPoint in a good and bad way so make sure you understand all the points below before you start using PPTs in your classroom because if you use it in a bad way PowerPoint can potentially confuse students and make learning a difficult process, especially when you use slides with lot of text and boring content. Let’s see some PowerPoint strengths and weaknesses.

Pros Teaching via PowerPoint in the Classroom

• Communication delivered over multiple channels is more efficient than communication over a single channel. Multiple channels make it more likely that the whole message will be received. An appropriate picture adds another channel.
• You can use charts, images, multimedia content, sound, etc. to represent and idea or simulate a case.
• You can keep your audience (students) motivated by using animated PowerPoint and funny slides describing a topic or problem.
• PowerPoints can be shared with your students and support the learning process. Especially using PPT sharing platforms like SlideOnline.
• You can separate different topics and chapters using sections and why not creating different PowerPoint files so can be shared separately.
• PowerPoint can motivate the staff and students. You can use collaboration tools to let user see in real time what you edit in PowerPoint and use a versioning system, for example using Office Web Apps.
• Students can print PowerPoint handouts.

Cons Teaching via PowerPoint

However, as in any other field there are cons and disadvantage that we need to know when teaching via PowerPoint. Let’s see some cons:

•  Lot of slides and lot of text can make presentations really boring.
• Sometimes PowerPoint can’t be opened in the classroom computer, especially if you save the PPT in an old format.
• Overuse can bore learners and diminish PowerPoint’s effectiveness.
• The resolution may not be the appropriate.
• A successful presentation can take several hours to develop and practice.
• Computers crash, networks go down, viruses can plague computers so save your work several times and make backups.