As technology continues to transform education, teachers have access to a variety of digital resources to enhance their teaching methods. One such powerful tool is Presentation Plus, a versatile software that enables you to create dynamic and interactive learning experiences. In this article, we will explore how you can leverage Presentation Plus to deliver engaging lessons and maximise the potential of this invaluable tool in your classroom.
What is Presentation Plus?
Presentation Plus on Cambridge One is a comprehensive presentation software that brings textbooks to life. It provides a digital version of the student’s books, complete with embedded videos, audio files, interactive activities, and built-in answer keys. This powerful tool is compatible with interactive whiteboards, data projectors, and online teaching platforms, making it suitable for both in-classroom and online teaching scenarios. Whether you teach young learners or adults, online or offline, Presentation Plus caters to a wide range of educational materials, including students’ books, workbooks, teacher editions, flashcards, and interactive games.
Before the lesson: effective lesson planning
While Presentation Plus allows you to walk into the classroom and start teaching, your lessons will always be better if you spend some time planning in advance.
- Know your content: Before the lesson, review the interactive activities and games you plan to use. Plan the logistics of grouping students and understand the content flow to be able to facilitate a smooth and engaging class.
- Use notes to add comments and links: Add notes to relevant pages in different components, including links to external resources, such as Kahoot quizzes, videos, or educational websites, to enhance the learning experience.
- Test everything: Always test your links in advance to ensure everything functions as intended during the lesson. If you’ve been working offline, make sure that you connect to the internet and synch your changes to your online account.
During the lesson: Making the most of Presentation Plus
Now that you’ve prepared your lesson, let’s explore various ways to use Presentation Plus effectively during the class.
- Checking homework: Encourage student participation by asking volunteers to come up to the board and check their answers. Discuss any challenging questions as a class, promoting a collaborative learning environment.
- Managing communicative activities: Use the timer feature to set time limits for discussions and other communicative activities. Display the countdown to help students manage their time effectively.
- Enhancing listening skills: Present videos without subtitles initially, allowing students to develop their listening skills. Later, show the video again with subtitles to focus on useful language. Slow the audio down or speed it up to match your students’ comprehension skills.
- Focusing student attention: Use the show and hide tools to keep students focused on specific parts of the screen, facilitating activities such as predicting from pictures or eliciting information.
- Changing focus and pace: Presentation Plus offers interactive games and activities that can energise students when they are tired or in need of a change. Organise students into teams and let them compete to boost their motivation and engagement.
- Setting homework: Before concluding the class, open the workbook in Presentation Plus and use the pen tool to circle relevant exercise numbers. Assign homework in front of the class and send your students a reminder to help them remember the homework tasks.
No Wi-Fi? No problem
If you work with an unreliable internet connection, you may choose to use Presentation Plus offline via the Cambridge One desktop app. Simply download the lessons you need, add notes, and start teaching. Your changes will be automatically synced to your account the next time you’re online.
Over to you
Incorporating Presentation Plus into your teaching toolkit can improve your classroom dynamics and create an engaging learning environment for your students. By using its versatile features such as interactive activities, multimedia integration, and efficient lesson planning tools, you can deliver impactful lessons that cater to diverse learning styles.
Why not start by incorporating one of the two techniques described here? As you gain confidence, you’ll no doubt expand your repertoire to include more and more best practices and perhaps even develop your own. For example, when teaching adult learners, it might be beneficial to explain the rationale behind using tools such as subtitles or the timer to develop students’ awareness, study skills and autonomy.
If you enjoyed this article and would like to get some more in-depth guidance on using Presentation Plus, log in to Cambridge One and head to ‘My training’ for a free online module on ‘How to teach with Presentation Plus.’