Friday, March 30, 2012

Tips to Enhance PowerPoint Creations

PowerPoint remains a stable for augmenting presentations. However, a poor PowerPoint can detract from your overall presentation. We have all heard of by now the phrase "Death by PowerPoint." The problem is not the tool, but people's understandings of the features in the software. People tend to mimic what they see modeled. As long as people continue to see poorly designed PowerPoint presentations, the more the vicious cycle of boring, ineffectual presentations will continue.

On the other hand, I have seen several presentations with tips for making engaging PowerPoint slide shows to augment one's presentation. Although this one is not my favorite, it still makes some good points and offers helpful advice, including how to work with color schemes and where to find acceptable use images.

10 Tips for Making Beautiful Slideshow Presentations

View more presentations from Edahn Small

What ideas did you pick up from going through this slide show? How might you now be able to enhance your own presentations?


You might also want to check out Doodleslide's Advice on PowerPoint for additional points about creating and delivering effective presentations. 

4 comments:

  1. I think these are great tips for presentations in general. I have created many powerpoints in the past and wish that I had some of these tips in mind as I prepared the slides. I will definately keep in mind the tip regarding the color scheme when preparing future presentations. I will also incorporate these tips when creating smartboard activities for my students!

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  2. The PowerPoint tips were really helpful since my students are required to make their own PowerPoint presentations in many of their classes. I was getting bored of their projects since they all had similar styles and colors but did not have the resources that you listed to help the students jazz up their presentations. Usually when working with students, I try to suggest they pick one font for the presentation and use the size or bold accent their titles, body and accents. After exploring this information I think it would be more creative if they used three fonts as suggested. Students who struggle to get the information on their topic and set up the PowerPoint work slowly and until now I did not think to guide them to matching the fonts to the themes of the presentations. In addition I really liked the idea of moving the text around in order to keep interest. The usual paragraph format tends to be vey monotonous, I will plan to suggest this for the next presentation.

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  3. And, here I thought I was a PowerPoint expert! I've always tried to minimize the amount of text on any given slide, but it looks like I have fallen victim to the "bullet point" syndrome! Evidently what I consider to be minimal text is still too much (15 words or less is the rule of thumb)!

    A few tips I'll keep in mind for my next presentation:

    1) Steer clear from the "pre-fab" templates and design my own. Select 5 corresponding colors and use fonts that support the "theme" of the presentation.

    2) Move text around to enhance visual interest.

    3) Use the same layout for slides that serve the same purpose -- so true, yet so easy to forget! Maintain continuity whenever possible.

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  4. I think the use of PowerPoint presentations is relatively simple and that is why the majority of people use them. Yet, like much of the presentation showed PowerPoints often become dull and repetitive. I think the tips they shared in this tutorial should be shared with all educators.

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