Death by a thousand cuts or a brilliant presentational package? MS Powerpoint 2003 (MS Office PowerPoint 2003)

Member Name: NomadSue

Product:	MS Office PowerPoint 2003
Date:	13/10/09 (71 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: You can create really impressive presentations.

Disadvantages: Takes practice!

Death by a thousand cuts or a brilliant presentation package?

MS PowerPoint

MS PowerPoint is a powerful graphics programme that has transformed the manner in which we prepare and deliver presentations. You can create, customise, animate and print presentations. It enables you to communicate information clearly and effectively. Many computers come with this package already installed.

The MS PowerPoint version that I use is the 2003 package for Students and Teachers, working on an XP laptop. This package costs £40.00 from Amazon, if bought separately, and is operated through Windows. The 2003 version has been superceded by newer, more sophisticated versions, the latest being MS PowerPoint 2007. However, I still find the 2003 version perfectly adequate for my present needs.

There are many online training packages, much additional online support guidance available, as well as useful tuition books which you can peruse at your own pace. The ECDL qualification (European Computer Driving Licence) contains sufficient information to enable you to compose your own PowerPoint presentation with ease and confidence.

Gone for me are the flipcharts, the physical holding up of visual aids (pictures, artefact, etc.), the collections of little cards on a key-ring. Now one little flash-drive or CD Rom can be used to carry a wealth of graphically-organised information and notes to enable me to share my brilliant ideas, all written in a simple PowerPoint. The information can be presented on a large, interactive whiteboard at the front of the room, via the projector, or through the computer screen (in a small group situation.)

If you are a technophobe, be encouraged - young children can create PowerPoint presentations. Those of us who remember the old Commodore Pet or BBC computers of the early 1980s, may recall hours spent typing in long strings of commands using Basic, just to achieve the sight of eg a robot walking stiffly across the screen. Mastering MS PowerPoint is, in my opinion, much, much easier!

For me, a practising EAL teacher and staff trainer, Powerpoints have a dual purpose:
* as a useful teaching aid,
* as an easy way to share information with adults.

Key data about progress, achievements, market trends, indeed all types of statistical analysis, can be easily and clearly presented to your audience, supported by the relevant charts, tables, graphs, photos, pictures or video clips. All of this being done through high impact, hopefully dynamic presentations.

However, it does require perseverance and a lot of practice to master all the skills required to create and insert complicated graph, video clips, etc.

What I would like to do is to share a few simple tips as to how I use this package.

What is a PowerPoint presentation?

A PowerPoint presentation contains a series of slides united by a common theme. The first slide is called a 'master slide' and contains the title of the presentation. You can add as many information-carrying slides as is necessary. It is wise not to exceed ten to twenty slides, as it is difficult for the audience to maintain concentration and to absorb new information when expected to focus on a large number of slides. Twenty slides can provide you with the basics for an hour long talk. Forty slides will have your audience reaching for their matchsticks to prop open their eyes. To maintain your audience's interest and attention, your presentation should be tightly-focussed, meaningful and interesting to the receivers. It is a good technique to intersperse the slides with relevant anecdotes illustrating the point you are making, as well as occasional practical activities.

How do I create an interesting PowerPoint?

Having decided on the structure and content of your talk, you need to create your slides, which will provide the framework of your talk.

There is a wide range of possible slide layouts, which can be accessed through 'Format' on the toolbar. These could include text only, text plus content (eg text plus graph), title and chart, and many other possible layouts.

Similarly, there is a big selection of pre-created slide designs, though personally I think a fancy design detracts from the clarity with which you are presenting the information. So I use a plain or two-coloured background, using the special fill effects. In our Local Authority, official training presentations should be made using the authority's official design, which contains certain colours and our logo. Thus uniformity of presentations is achieved.

There are many different fonts to choose from. It is wise to choose a simple one, such as times New Roman or Comic Sans MS. The font can be any size, but don't make it too small, and any colour. I advise you to choose a dark colour such as black, as it will provide a clear contrast with the lighter background, thus making it easier to read, particularly for those people who may have problems with their sight or dyslexia.

Depending on the purpose of your presentation, you can use bullet points, which can be made to appear one at a time, using the excellent special effects to be found under slide show - custom animation. You can even have a picture of, say, a witch, flying around on the slide. However, do not be tempted to use too many special effects as this will distract the audience and detract from the success of your presentation.

It is possible to pre-record speech, music or other sounds, linking the sounds to individual slides. The slides can be advanced at the click of the mouse or automatically after a preset interval. You can also pre-record continuous narration, setting the slides so that they advance automatically (accompanied by the narration) at the speed which you have selected. This ability to pre-record sound is particularly useful if you wish to deliver a dual language presentation, where the written words are in English, but the recorded words are in, for example, French. This is useful when addressing a multi-lingual audience.

Delivering your PowerPoint presentation - a few helpful hints

1. Do not turn your back on the audience when you need to refer to the slide on the screen. It is possibly to see the same slides of the computer screen in front of you.
2. Your audience is literate. Older children / adults are capable of reading the slides for themselves, so allow sufficient time for them to do so and to internally process the information before you expand each point.
3. Use a flash-pen to point to specific areas of the slide, rather than vainly struggle to reach that point on the large display screen with your hand or a ruler.
4. Do not be too ambitious in the amount of material that you wish to deliver.
5. Use relevant illustrations to brighten up some slides.
6. Do not use too many special effects.
7. Check that you have been consistent on the choice of font used.
8. My final slide for a formal presentation would thank the audience, ask if there are any questions, and show a request that they complete the evaluation forms.

As an EAL teacher, working with pupils who have no or little English, I find MS PowerPoint a particularly useful tool for pre-teaching and consolidating everyday vocabulary in a highly visual manner. There are many free PowerPoints available to download on the internet, especially on school and teacher websites. But I prefer to create my own, using clipart, photos and home-made video clips.

My favourite application of the MS PowerPoint is to create short, simple stories, for example showing the story of Christmas, or of a child being sick and being seen by the doctor. I then encourage my (shy) EAL pupils to record the captions or narrative for me. And perhaps to experiment with the special effects or background colour, thus enhancing their ICT skills as well as encouraging clear speech. (If you would like further information of work that I have put onto the internet, please feel free to send me a message and I will send you the appropriate website information. )

Summary
I think that MS PowerPoint is easy and fun to use. It is versatile as it can be used for formal presentations, for educational and fun presentations. However, it can take quite a while to become a really confident and competent producer of really good presentations.

(Cross-posted on other istes.)

Summary: A great tool for the creation of formal and educational presentations.

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