PowerPoint for Teachers
Reviewed: Geetesh Bajaj
Date Created: December 12th 2003
Last Updated: February 28th 2009
Introduction
About Kevin Steingruebner
Registration and Benefits
Using The Site
Indexing Presentations
Pricing & Support
Conclusion
Introduction
PowerPointforTeachers.com is a website that attempts to be a repository of PowerPoint presentations on all types of subjects that teachers can download and use in their classrooms.
For those who want to know more about the use of PowerPoint in education, do look at this page...
For a look at the site and how it works, do visit powerpointforteachers.com
About Kevin Steingruebner
The site is run Kevin Steingruebner, who has provided an excellent background about himself and the development of the site:
I have been teaching high school social studies
for nine years in Valley Stream, Long Island, New York, focusing primarily
on American Government. I am constantly looking for new, innovative ways
to teach, and computer technology has been the perfect opportunity for
me to try new things. The development of Microsoft's PowerPoint and the
internet have changed the way many of us use technology in the classroom.
Although these technologies have become readily available in hundreds
of thousands of classrooms in America and around the world, much of it is
minimally used, or not at all. It is really this lack of usage that has driven
me to create my website.
The biggest factor preventing teachers from using PowerPoint is the
amount of time it takes to create a presentation. I have found that many
teachers have a general working knowledge of the program, but do not feel
comfortable enough to use it regularly. Many schools have spent numerous
staff development days creating presentations to share with each other. It
is this sense of file sharing that also led to the development of the site.
In the summer of 2002 I initially launched powerpointforteachers.com as
a site where teachers could share and sell their own PowerPoint files. Over
the past 18 months and thousands of hours of research, I found that there
are millions of pre-made presentations in cyber-space, on just about any
topic, and in all languages.
Many of these presentations are specifically made by teachers for
the purpose of presenting information in the classroom. My website's main
feature is that it allows teachers to search from among many of these specific
presentations. Each one of these has been reviewed and summarized by my
staff. The summaries allow teachers to review a presentation file before
actually downloading it, which can be a time consuming task in itself.
The site also includes a Google search, which has search capabilities
to find specific PowerPoint files. These search results do not include
summaries, and might not be made specifically by teachers for classroom
purposes.
Overall, the website has been developed for the purpose of saving
teachers valuable preparation time while giving them the opportunity to
incorporate technology into their teaching strategies.
Thank you, Kevin!
Registration and Benefits
PowerPointforTeachers.com does not contain any actual presentations to download - it actually is a researched catalog of linked PowerPoint resources from university and school sites. Rather than search (or not be aware of) this presentation content, you can browse a list of linked content that's cataloged according to some keywords. We'll explore how this works later during this review.
To become a member, you'll need to register and process a payment of US$12.95 through PayPal. You'll also need to choose a username and password to login.
Using The Site
- Once you get to the homepage (or any page
on the site), you'll find a link for the Members section.
Log-in to the members section using your username and password
and you'll be presented with a keyword search option.
Figure 1: Enter a keyword or a combination of keywords in the search form for presentations.
- Enter any keywords - for example, a search for
the term 'dinosaur' returns two hits. All search results are hyperlinks
that you can click.
Figure 2: Search results are actually hyperlinks that link to pages that provide more information.
- Clicking one of these links provides detailed info
about the presentation. Most of this information has been reviewed by
opening and viewing each presentation and analyzing the content. The
following table shows some sample information you can typically expect
to see at PowerPointforTeachers.com
TitleSummaryLengthDinosaurs: The
Mesozoic EraA brief presentation with basic reviews of the Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous periods of the Mesozoic Era. Graphics include sketches, paintings, and photographs of fossils.11 slidesNo.LevelKeywordsSize03-0112ElementaryScience406kb
- On the top of the info page, you'll find the actual download link for the presentation.
Indexing Presentations
As can be expected from a site like this, a continuous indexing of presentation content takes place all the time. Kevin adds that "at this point indexing of presentations is a search by keyword of web pages that include the summary of each presentation."
Also, all links are checked every week to ascertain whether they are dead or live.
Pricing & Support
An individual annual subscription costs US$12.95 - group rates are available on request. An annual subscription allows unlimited use of the search facilities.
Payment for membership is through PayPal, an eBay company that facilitates micro-payments through your credit card.
I asked Kevin about support, which is "...through e-mail because most issues are not very complex. I have spoken to a few customers on the phone. A customer service number is provided when a purchase is made".
Conclusion
On the whole, this site is great for educators who want readymade PowerPoint content to use or edit. It's a small cost that provides access to thousands of presentations that have been all indexed for keywords.
