Preparing Power Point presentation Muna Shalima Jahan

The best PowerPoint slides serve as visual aids for memorable presentations. The worst slides are used as Teleprompters or wordy summaries of content.

Common abuses in PowerPoint use Including excessive detail Too much text on a slide Slides are visually poor and/or boring Excessive use of graphics Irritating noises and slide transitions Inappropriate use of multimedia options Tendency to go too fast No back up in event of technological failure

Common abuses in PowerPoint use can be avoided by- training and reflecting upon one’s approach to teaching and learning.

Objectives of this session Able to prepare effective PPT as instruction delivery aid maintaining norms

Design a template that is free from distracting items – footers, logo Eliminate non-data ink (bullet points, gridlines, etc.) and headings introducing topic Too much text distracts your audience and can be difficult to read.

Design template that promotes readability Well lit room Darkened room Don’t use red font on blue background or vice versa Dark text Light text

Use fonts with good visibility Limit fonts to two, at most, to have a consistent look and feel. Serif fonts produce blurred look x Sans serif fonts produce a clearer, easy to read look

Text should be large enough to be read from back Use appropriate font size – 24 and larger DO NOT USE CAPITALS except for occasional emphasis Capitals are harder to read than lower-case letters

Clearly assert the slide’s main idea in a complete sentence Appears at the top of the slide Contains one distinct point Flows logically from previous slide Slide headings should contain a message not a topic

Packing too much information into a slide will completely undermine its purpose. 

Most effective slides are often those with least text. Use bullet points sparingly (if at all)

ONE slide ONE theme

Use Grammatical Parallelism Not Parallel: Lyse cells in buffer 5 minute centrifuging Supernatant is removed Parallel: Centrifuge for 5 minutes Remove supernatant

Better to reinforce the argument with visual evidence. No more than 2 graphics (photographs, screen-shots) per slide is a good general rule. Sidr devastation: village after village, barely any accommodation was left standing.

Easily interpreted visuals allow audience to confirm rather than discover

Incorporating text  into photo presents a more unified & visually pleasing message

“A picture is worth a thousand words”

Highlight the most important information in tables and graphs. Misleading Correct

The “classic” types of misleading graphs include cases where: Vertical scale - too big or too small, or skips numbers, or doesn’t start at zero Not properly labeled Data - left out

Better Good

Postnatal mortality among mothers by age group: BDHS 1993-2014

Be consistent and minimalist with effects, transitions and animation. Better to Use- “Appear effect” Not “FANCY EFFECTS” Do not use ‘exit effect’ animation

Personalized templates may be created by using the Slide Master feature. Click View on Toolbar On the View menu, click Slide Master Slide Master View appears Working in the slide, edit the Master Slide by going to Format on the Toolbar and working on Font and Background

Insert graphics if desired Return to Normal View by clicking on Close Master View on the dialog box With Master Slide on the screen, background can be designed with color, copyright information, logos, or other graphics

PowerPoint is much more powerful and flexible than that and alternative activities can be facilitated by its use, limited only by the creativity of the user.