How to Effectively Use PowerPoint Presentation Slides in the 21st Century Classroom?

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Mr. Andrew Gielda is a veteran and senior teacher who is taking a history class at Bay City All Saints Central. He is enthusiastically delivering the history facts through PowerPoint Presentations to his students. But he is noticing that they are just passively listening. He paused in between his lectures and asked a question from students. But, he only faces an awkward silence as no one replies to him. Slumping his shoulders, he resumed his lecture.

On the other side of the world, Jeremy Gardner is teaching math at North Layton Junior High in Layton, Utah. He is continuously switching between Microsoft whiteboard and PowerPoint presentation slides to teach various math concepts to students. However, he is noticing that continuously switching between apps is frustrating students and interrupting their concentration flow.

These are some of the issues that teachers face when having a simple PowerPoint presentation slide in the classroom. Students just passively listen and don't concentrate, and teachers also get frustrated with the limited number of features on the PowerPoint app.

To solve these issues and to effectively use PowerPoint presentation slides in the 21st-century classroom, a lot of teachers have integrated the Class Point app into it.

What is the Class Point App?

Class Point app is a free all-in-one teaching tool that could be integrated into the PowerPoint app to make it effective and engaging. It contains an array of tools that are not available in the PowerPoint app. So, it helps teachers in enhancing their teaching experience.

This tool is not available in an app form. You have to download it as a Chrome integration on your Windows 10, Office 2013 or higher device. It is not for Mac users but they can use this tool if they are running Windows on Mac. Moreover, your students can use this tool anywhere with any device by going to the classpoint.io website.

It has three main pricing plans. One is free in which a teacher can handle 25 students in a classroom. The other is pro in which you have to pay 8 dollars per month for a big classroom. The third is a custom plan which educational institutes can avail after contacting the team.

Now, how does it enhance PowerPoint presentation slides? Let's discuss it.

How Class Point app is Helping Teachers in Enhancing PowerPoint Presentation Slides?

This app has three main features for making PowerPoint slides interactive: an array of presentation tools, interactive quizzes and gamification elements. Let’s discuss all of them in detail in the next parts.

Array of Presentation Tools

There are various presentation tools in the toolbar that are helping teachers in various ways. The app is continuously getting updated, so new features are added to it at regular intervals. We are going to discuss a few popular tools here.

WhiteBoard: You can find a whiteboard feature in the toolbar that enables you to open the whiteboard without switching to any app. You don't need to leave your presentation slides for using the whiteboard.

Annotation: You can annotate your presentation slides live in the classroom to teach and make learning interactive. You can highlight any text in your slides, write through different pens, make diagrams or solve math questions in front of the classroom.

Audio: You can record your audio or add any sound effects to any presentation slide. You can also invite your students to add any pre-recorded audio or record their thoughts on a slide live in the classroom.

Multimedia Content: You can add images, videos and audio to your presentation slides. You can do a live recording of yours into the slides when you want to explain any concept to students.

Integration: You can integrate various third-party tools to enhance your PowerPoint presentations. These tools include Zoom, Loom, Microsoft Teams and Screencast O’matic.

Embedded Browser: While delivering a presentation on PowerPoint, you may want to go on Google to search for something or to enhance the understanding of students. Class Point is helping you in this situation by embedding the browser in its toolbar. Now, you don't need to switch between Google or PowerPoint slides in the virtual or physical classroom.

Timer: Time management is crucial in the classroom as you have to complete the curriculum within a specific time frame. Moreover, you can give different activities to students that they have to complete within a specific time block to enhance their soft skills. For this, you can find the timer feature in the toolbar.

Enable it and the timer will start appearing on your PowerPoint slides.

Draggable Objects: Let's suppose you are having a fill-in-the-blank activity in the classroom. Class Point allows you to drag objects and text on the slide. So, you can drag the true answer into the blank when a student responds to you. You can also use this feature when you are teaching specific concepts in the classroom.

Name Picker: You must have faced this issue that you want someone from the classroom to answer your question and no one is responding to you. Or, sometimes, you start an activity in the classroom and a lot of students are willing to do it. In such situations, a name-picker tool can be a handy one. You can spin the wheel that contains the name of your students and it will choose one student randomly. 

Group Setting: You can add your students to the class tab. Now, whenever you want to do any group activity, you can ask AI to create different groups of your students or you can manually create them too with this tool.

Interactive Quiz Section

There are eight different kinds of quizzes in the tool that you can use in your presentation slides. You just have to go to the Quiz Section and choose any kind of quiz present in it.

AI Quiz Generator: The one type is an AI quiz generator in which you have to give one presentation slide, and it would generate a quiz for you from the content of the slide. You can choose the right answer and the number of stars students will get when they answer the quiz correctly.

Short Answers: You can invite students to type short answers to your questions present on the slide.

Slide Drawing: This feature allows you to create diagrams in front of the classroom. It is helpful for math and science teachers as they have to draw on graphs and explain science concepts with diagrams. You can even invite your students to draw on the presentation slide if you want to give drawing as homework or assessment.

Word Cloud: It allows you to break the ice in the classroom by asking a fun or interactive question at the beginning of the classroom.

Poll: If you want to gain the feedback of students, you can start a poll in the classroom. Students can record their answers, and you can see the insights live in the classroom through the Reports section.

Multiple Choice Questions: You can create multiple choice questions and ask your students to solve them by inviting them to the slide. They will respond live in the classroom through their devices and you can check their responses.

Live Question and Answer: Let's suppose you are teaching a concept and a student has a question regarding it. But, they are shy or don't want to interrupt your presentation. So, you can activate the live question and answer feature in this tool that will allow them to add their questions whenever they have one in this feature. You can review those questions whenever you want. Other students can see their classmate's questions and can like them if they have the same.

Fill in the Blanks: The drag-and-drop feature enables you to create different types of fill-in-blanks in the classroom.

Gamification Elements

There are various gamification elements in the tool that you can use. Moreover, there are nine kinds of gamified quizzes too that you can use in your PowerPoint slides.

Stars and Badges: You can give stars and badges to your students whenever you think they deserve. You can manually give them or add any rubric in the tool so that they automatically get the badges and stars.

LeaderBoard: You and your students can see the leaderboard option. It will contain all the rankings of learners that will motivate them to keep learning.

Jeopardy Style Quiz: There is a Jeopardy game template in the Class point that enables you to create a game board. Students can select any board and they will get the linked question in it.

Puzzle: You can convert any picture into a puzzle. Then, invite students to solve it through a drag-and-drop feature.

Hangman: You can get a hangman template, too, that you can customize according to your liking. Students can drag and drop answers in it.

Family Feud Game: You can divide your students into groups and give survey-based questions to them. When they answer correctly, they will get stars that will enhance their levels.

Wheel of Fortune Game: Gamification elements, a name picker tool, and the draggable objects feature can help you in creating a Wheel of Fortune game.

Interactive Scavenger Hunt: You can conceal information throughout your presentation, and students can find it by answering questions or solving problems.

Conclusion: All-in-one Teaching Tool for 21st Century Teachers

In short, Class Point is one of the successful teaching tools in 2024. It was introduced in the Covid era to help teachers in the virtual classrooms. But, it is equally beneficial in the physical classroom.

It enhances PowerPoint presentation slides, ensuring that students become active learners instead of passive learners. It helps teachers in making their presentation slides interactive and interesting. The best thing is it has a free version to use so you don't need to worry about expenses.

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