POWERPOINT
PRESENTATIONS
FOR THE CLASSROOM AND THE WEB
Dr. Richard L.
Bowman, Director
Academic Computing, Bridgewater College, Bridgewater, VA,
USA 22812
I. Introduction
Microsoft's PowerPoint, an example of powerful presentation
software, enables the user to construct exciting multimedia
productions. In this tutorial, you will learn the basics of building a
smooth and exciting presentation that will provide your audience with
an informative and enjoyable experience.
Caution: Using PowerPoint does not guarantee that a
teacher will be more effective in presenting subject matter or that
students will learn the material more quickly, understand the concepts
more completely, nor retain the information longer. Presenters must
always keep in mind that the key to effective learning is to have
persons interact with the material. The danger is that a PowerPoint
presentation may simply be a modern way to give a static,
non-interactive lecture.
II. Look at a Sample Presentation
This tutorial is aimed toward users of PowerPoint 2007, but
it should also be usable for the older versions with some slight
changes.
1. Save the files.
Right click on each of the hyperlinks listed below. From the
resulting menu, select the option, "Save Target As." Save the file in an
appropriate directory on your computer.
2. Play the presentation.
There are two ways that the saved presentation can be viewed.
- Through "My Computer" locate the "PHYS110-Intro-1.ppt" file and
right-click on it. From the resulting menu, select the "Show"
option.
- Alternately, double-click on the file "PHYS110-Intro-1.ppt."
This will place the PHYS 110 presentation in the PowerPoint
editing/creation window. To begin viewing the presentation, find the
icon near the bottom of the PowerPoint window that looks
like a small projection screen and that shows the words "Slide Show" when the mouse pointer moves over it. Click on
this icon and the show will start. The presentation can also be
started by going to the View or Slide Show menu (depending upon the
version of PowerPoint being used) and selecting the Slide
Show
option you want.
In all cases, use the arrow keys or left mouse clicks to move through
the presentation. The presentation can be stopped at any point by
pressing the Escape key in the upper-left corner of the keyboard.
Note: The video clip regarding the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft
on the fourth slide needs to be clicked on to begin playing.
III. Remember These Presentation Principles
A. For a more effective presentation, introduce only one or two
ideas at a time.
B. Use large readable fonts with only a few ideas (usually
bulleted points) presented on each slide.
C. Make each slide interesting but not cluttered. Often the "bells
and whistles" that PowerPoint can provide detract from and hinder
the communication of ideas that is the real focus of any presentation.
D. Giving a presentation should involve more than simply reading
each slide.
E. Keep the presentation interactive by asking for responses from
the audience to pertinent questions.
F. Consider giving the audience something to take notes on and
something to take away from the presentation.
G. In most teaching situations, do not put all of the information
to be given on the topic in the PowerPoint presentation. Consider
the slide show as an outline, discussion starter and motivational
medium.
IV. Ready, Set, Go!
A. Get Acquainted With The Toolbars And Menus.
Open up the PowerPoint program and explore each of the menus
at the top of the program window. Next move to the toolbar(s) and rest
the mouse cursor on the buttons one at a time. Wait briefly to see the
name of the button. Don't try to remember each button; this is just to
get a quick sense of what is available.
B. Plan Your Presentation!
Every effective presentation needs a clear focus, and each slide
should be designed with this focus in mind. Even if you are creating a
"dummy" presentation now as a way to learn how to create PowerPoint
presentations, take a bit of time to plan the presentation.
C. Create Your First Presentation.
Method 1: Begin With A Clean Slate.
In PowerPoint 2007, go to the Office Button and select New
and then Blank Presentation. A new blank presentation will open with one
slide showing--a title slide. Begin by designing a title slide. If the text you type is not large
enough or you do not want it centered or whatever, choose the
appropriate editing and formatting buttons or menus as necessary.
After the title slide is finished, insert new slides with the desired
style of layout until your slide show is complete. The choice of an
interesting background and other effects can be added later as described
in section later in this tutorial.
Method 2: Using Templates in PowerPoint 2007 Can Give You A Hand.
To access the templates in PowerPoint 2007, go to the
Office button and select New. In the window that opens at that
point, select the option on the left-hand side labeled "Installed
Templates." Click on one of them and follow it through. You may also
begin with a new theme.
V. Enhance Your Presentation
A. Explore the themes.
Selecting the "Design" toolbar and then choose a particular background color and design
under the Theme section. Clicking will
apply that design to your slide show. Try previewing a few different
ones and then select one for your slide show or try several of them.
Caution: Make sure to not choose a design that competes with
your information so that persons viewing the presentation have to work
to be able to read the material.
B. Create your own design scheme.
This is a topic that is worth investigating on your own using the
Help system. Click on the Help button and then type in "create a
new custom layout." Follow the various options provided to learn how to
modify the predefined templates.
C. Insert pictures, graphics, sounds, and videos.
It is relatively easy to insert a picture, graphic, sound, or
video into a
presentation. To demonstrate the technique, try inserting a picture of a sheepdog into
the Dog presentation you made. As before, first save the picture by
right-clicking on this hyperlink for "sheepdog.gif". From the resulting
menu, select the option, "Save Target As." Save the file in an
appropriate directory on your computer.
Then on the title slide of a new presentation add the title "Dog"
and left-justify it. Do the same for your name as the author.
Then from the Insert menu select "Picture." Go to the appropriate
folder,
find the "sheepdog" picture and insert it. Once it is in place on the
slide, click in the picture and hold down on the left mouse button. Now
you can move the picture to the exact location on the slide where you
want it to be. Also "grab" a corner of the picture with your mouse (the
cursor will turn into a two-headed arrow) and drag it to make the
picture larger.
Caution: The one very critical factor for using sound or
video files is that the system you will
be using to give your presentation must have the necessary software
operational to "use" this multimedia format so that the movie or sound can be presented.
D. Add animation effects.
Choose one of the slides that have several lines of bulleted text. To
examine several of the animation effects for how this text may be
presented, click on the text to select it. Select the "Animation"
toolbar and experiment.
Note that there maybe a sound associated with this animation
effect. This can be VERY VERY distracting to the viewer! To turn off
this sound, after applying the effect, go to the "Transition
Sound" button on the Animation
toolbar and change it to "No Sound."
E. Preview the slide show.
Finally check out the slide show with the "Slide Show" button at the
bottom of the PowerPoint screen.
F. Save the presentation.
To save the whole presentation, use the Office button as per usual with
Microsoft Office 2007 applications.
G. Create handouts for others and notes for yourself.
The print command found in the Office button will allow you to make
colored or grayscale copies of your presentation so that you ma make
them available to your audience. Experiment with the options.
VI. Publish Your Presentation On The Web
After generating a presentation that is well-done, an instructor may
wish to publish it on the Web so that students access it at their
convenience. PowerPoint 2007 makes this task fairly
straightforward. From the Office button select "Save As" and then select the "Other
Formats." Finally in the resulting Save As window choose the type
to be "Web Page." This process is still not quite as
clean as it should be, so do some experimenting.
The resulting HTML web pages and images must then be transferred to
the appropriate web drive and linked to some previously published
web page. See one of the web tutorials from Academic Computing for more
details.
Note: All of the graphics inserted into the presentation and
any designs used for the slides will be transferred to the HTML format.
However, the animation effects, sounds, and videos may not work on the web.
Appendix: Resources
In addition to this tutorial, the reader will probably
find several other resources helpful.
The Help Menu!!
All of the components of the Help system are excellent routes to becoming better acquainted with the
possibilities embedded in PowerPoint. Use them! Experiment!
Other Tutorials at Bridgewater
College's Academic Computing Web Site
Other Resources
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