Publishing and presentation software

Research shows that when students present their findings to their peers, their own understanding of the subject is improved. For example, if students are using PowerPoint to present ideas about the lifecycle of stars, they can be explicit about why they chose that application and how they used it to support their assignment. The visual nature of the presentation will help students demonstrate and share their own understanding of the topic covered.

One of the growing areas of ICT usage in physics is digital video to capture presentations and practical activities. This has a number of advantages, including:

encouraging students to be clear, precise and concise in presenting ideas that they have developed
providing an opportunity to analyse material in the lesson ï¿½ for example, more sophisticated packages such as Dartfish allow users to analyse distance travelled by moving objects filmed providing an opportunity to revisit ideas and questions later in the lesson or series of lessons using footage with other teaching groups as exemplar material.

Interactive whiteboards are also an important classroom tool for many science teachers. Advice and guidance on how to use them effectively in science can be found in the spring 2007 Secondary National Strategy science subject leader development materials:
www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/secondary/
keystage3/downloads/sci_sldevspri07_1107_mats.pdf