The Origin and Use of the PowerPoint

In today's digital age, it has almost become inevitable that persons will come across a PowerPoint presentation. Whether it is in classrooms, work presentations, job expectations etc. almost everyone that has access to any digital media or technology has seen or even heard of one.  The PowerPoint is one of the most commonly used applications in the classroom today at every level of education. This application has over 1 billion downloads on Google Play Store alone, also with very high ratings on the Apple store. But how did the PowerPoint come about and who developed this application? 

According to Microsoft.com, a PowerPoint is a tool used to create presentations. It was created by Robert Gaskins and Dennis Austin and was initially released in 1987. Tech giant, Microsoft then acquired PowerPoint and it was added as a component of Microsoft Office Suite. Over the years, the application has become more and more popular and has become a tool that has even impacted learning in schools. 

The use of PowerPoint in schools has elevated the way how some students are able to grasp the content being taught in schools. The application is flexible enough to incorporate both audio and visual representations that can be manipulated to support any and every topic one may want to present on. This tool impacts our cognitive learning because it impacts our mental processes and strategies used in learning. According to Northern Illinois University, Centre for Innovative Teaching and Learning, using PowerPoint presentations can help teachers to present course materials in multiple ways (a multimodal approach).  Through the use of visual elements such as pictures and videos; audio elements such as sounds and text elements that encourage reading and writing; it is seen that sharing information across a variety of modes can improve comprehension and retention. 

What other ways do you think teachers can help to make course content more digestible for students using ICTs?

References

Teaching with PowerPoint | Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning | Northern Illinois University (niu.edu)

Microsoft.com