Some helpful teaching aids for history teachers

PowerPoint is a helpful tool for history teachers, and is one of the leading educational technology programs worldwide used for presentations. PowerPoint optimizes the popular slideshow format for the presentation of lesson plans and is a step beyond the white board or overhead projector traditionally used during lessons.

History PowerPoint lessons are extremely versatile and can be used for presenting lesson plans to students of all ages from Elementary School to University.

It is easy to customize history lesson plans with PowerPoint. While the software comes with a slideshow template standard, it is possible to expand upon this format with alternative templates which can be found online and also ad-ins to make existing templates more creative.

PowerPoints offer teachers a ‘printing options' feature which facilitates the printing of lesson plan outlines and handouts for students during lessons, not to mention notes pages for the teacher presenting the lesson plan. For history teachers who wish to keep printing costs for lessons to a minimum, PowerPoints alternatively allow teachers to save and file lesson plans electronically and to circulate information in this format to students during lessons rather than on paper. Using this method, lesson plans can be emailed to students or uploaded onto a high school or university website for history students to access them online after lessons.

Once a history teacher becomes familiar with PowerPoint it can be used for the full spectrum of history lessons. U.S. history lesson plans and World history lesson plans can be presented using PowerPoint. Colonization, Slavery, Causes of Civil War and Reconstruction are some of the issues that make for effective PowerPoint presentations. Twentieth century history themes like World War II and the post war decades through to the 1990s are particularly apt for this modern educational technology.

History PowerPoint lessons are particularly useful aids for history teachers as they allow them to introduce new elements to history teaching plans such as games and other computer-based activities. History quizzes, fill in the blanks tests and even board game history puzzles can be put together for students on history PowerPoints.

For history PowerPoints to be effective teaching aids, they must be used well. Slides must be easy to follow, without overly jazzy font and backgrounds. It is also important to vary presentation of the history lesson plan and to combine words with photographs, charts and graphs so that it is not boring for students during the lesson.

Teachers might want to opt for professionally made PowerPoints. These are available for easy internet download, or can be delivered to schools and homes in CD and DVD format. They can be re-used for multiple classes and schoolyears, giving teachers a lot of mileage from a single purchase.
It gives teachers a jumpstart on lesson planning by having a "classroom in a box" with PowerPoints that include lessons, crossword puzzles, exams and more. They're very flexible, as they can be used in many ways in the classroom, for instance, as an opening activity, in the middle of a unit, or for review.
Teachers don't actually need PowerPoint loaded on a computer if they buy these materials in DVD form. The DVD can be played on any computer or and even a DVD player with remote control.

These classroom materials hold the attention of today's media-savvy students with multimedia capabilities that include audio and video. They also use primary source documents, allowing students to view firsthand important historical pieces including speeches, videos and audio clips.
Besides being able to hold the attention of students, they are linked to national history standards and major state standards, which helps with state test prep, and can improve students' state test scores.

PowerPoint is a popular feature of today's education technology and professionally made PowerPoint lesson plans are an extremely helpful aid for history teachers as they formulate their lesson plans.

Written by Muireann Prendergast. MultiMedia Learning LLC provides World history PowerPoints, as well as history classroom games, and U.S. History PowerPoints. Learn more at http://www.multimedialearning.org.



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