PowerPoint Journal February 20, 2009
Although I have used many PowerPoint’s (ppts) for presentations and have sat through a million of them--this discussion helped me to focus on the actual skill involved with creating and delivering a great ppt. presentation.
In schools where there is not a lot of technology—ppt is probably one of the few used times when technology is used and so I definitely think there is a place for ppt presentations.
I like Guy Kawaski’s Rule of 10/20/30—10 slides/20 minutes/not smaller than 30 font size. It is probably a great rule for the classroom and in business. I like peer comments on how they present ppt. have an activity and review—using some of the above rules.
Other ideas I liked that peers or the articles presented were:
No more than one concept per page
Use photos not clipart (although I think there might be a place for clipart)
We are not showing off tech skills it’s the presentations skills that are important
Have passion about the topic/presentation
Visual learners may learn better with ppt. than just lecture
Be an expert—very important (so you are not reading your ppt)
Bold letters and simple colors
Have fun
I like Alexi Kaperev article on “Death by PowerPoint” which points out:
Significance
Structure
Simplicity
Rehearsal
I like our Tutorial project so much that I turned around and did similar projects with 2 teams of students. Using ppt, audacity and moviemaker. We had a lot of fun working on those! It also helped me to gain some expertise in that area—teaching others!
I recently have done a lot of ppt teaching and I have created a new rule—Reiber’s 5/5/40 for student presentations. Total of 5 slides, no more than 5 minutes long with a font of 40 so that entire class can see the presentation—this worked well to get class presentations done in 2 days. I also asked their only be titles and that the teacher have a content rubric and presentation rubric. We also live blogged these presentations (back channeling) which was another fun tech piece.
I did feel that most of the discussion topics under the main one led us back to the same discussions—a little too redundant for me. Karen