One Hour PowerPoint: A Strategy for Improving Presentations – David Jakes
· Idea – to dramatically change how students create presentations in 45 minutes.
· Showed past technologies
· Slides are on Slideshare
· “It’s not what the software does. It’s what the user does.”
· #1: Teach kids a little biology
o Brain == 3 ½ lbs. – 12 billion cells
o Optic nerve – 1 million neurons
o Auditory nerve – 17-18 thousand neurons
o The brain is designed to process visually
o 30% of the cortex is devoted to vision processing. 8 % touch. 3% hearing
o Teach students the basics of biology – we are visual people.
· #2: We need to move PowerPoint away from being text-based.
o PowerPoints are performances
o PowerPoint is not a teleprompter
o People learn best with imagery and limited amounts of text
o Cognitive Load Theory – Slides are moving to working memory, which is not permanent.
· #3: Flickr – connects to #4
· #4: Creative Commons:
o Help students understand how information can be used online
o When photos are uploaded to Flickr – tell users how they can create your content
o Have students choose the Attribution license. Any user can use your photography as long as they trace their use to the creator
o FlickrStorm – Allows searching within Creative Commons. Also has a URL. Allows students to have access to a specific URL so that those things which are not appropriate to not appear.
o Istockphoto.com
· #5: Design Principles
o Slide Makeover – Give an original presentation and let’s see how this can become a more vibrant presentation
§ Random templates don’t have anything to do with your presentation. Teach students to think about that. Strip away the templates
§ Strip away points that are not as important. You might want to speak to those points rather than talking to those points
§ Find an image that is a metaphor for an idea
· #6: Teach People to Sell
o Kids need to learn how to craft and sell their presentation
o Teach them to convince the audience that their ideas are correct
o Communicate through emotion. Only focusing on bullet points doesn’t make that happen
· #7: Color and font choice matters
o We need to help students understand these issues
o Color means different things for different audiences. (We can each see 16.6 different colors)
o EX: Green suggests renewal. Blue is an important color in America. Red signifies danger or alert. Deep blue signifies trust (in America)
o Do students know the difference between a serif font and a sans serif font? The serifs help someone read as the eye travels across the page.
o When you project font, you should always use a sans serif font in your presentations
o Hellactiva is the font of the IRS – don’t use that
· #8: Add dramatically to your presentation by adding video
o Make sure you EMBED – take something from somewhere and include it in your presentation.
o Zamzar.com – convert the site into a downloadable file. If you are on a Windows machine use .wmv or .avi. Helps to do this if you have a sketchy Internet connection.
· #9: Teach students some keyboard shortcuts
o Hit the B key and the screen goes blank
o Hit the W key and the screen goes white
o Look at the PowerPoint shortcuts that are out there
o Encourage students to have a printout of their slides
· #10: Share
o Book to read – The Back of the Napkin
o Use Slideshare to upload slides to an online site.
o Look for features presentations on Slideshare. Have your students look at them and analyze them. Critique these examples. What elements of design are used? What other elements are seen?
o Share photo credits at the end of a presentation