I’m at an elementary school in Garner, just south of Raleigh. My former boss at the State Department of Public Instruction, Margaret Bingham, who continues to impact on the use of technology in schools.
Ouita Myers, who is most identified by her work in web design for accessibility. Today, she is talking about PowerPoint, something that everyone already knows about 😉 —- The title of the presentation is to “Discover how your Presentations Measure Up.” She points out that students do best when they are given an open outline of the topic, and when they are asked to fill in the blanks with their presentations. this is based on research that was shared by Patrick Crispen.
Quote of the session:
Poor presentations are ubiquitous.
She recommends that we design out presentations in slide sorter view, so that it looks like a storyboard. You should be able to glance through the slides and “tell a story”.
Hi David
I think “wordless PowerPoints” should be required; that way people will be prevented from reading their slides to their audience, and it might actually be used as a visual aid!
Jeff Branzburg
Amen!
It seems that this is a hot topic at the moment – it goes in cycles. For me PowerPoint is a soapbox issue. I spent many years providing training and coaching in both PowerPoint and public speaking. See my post http://karynromeis.blogspot.com/2006/02/powerpoint.html for my views. There is also a very good post over at Presentation Zen on the subject. See http://presentationzen.blogs.com/presentationzen/2006/04/slideuments_and.html
Guy Kawasaki also has some great tips (follow the link in my post).
To my mind, the single biggest error that speakers make is to forget who is supposed to benefit from the visual aids. They are supposed to aid the audience in the understanding and retention of the message(s) – not to aid the speaker in remembering what to say!
Oh, and I’ve said it before, but: if I never see another bullet point again, it will be too soon.
David,
I am very interested in the “research” that you mentioned. You said it was shared by Patrick Crispen. I am writing a graduate course entitled, Educational Technology Trends, and I have a little piece about presentations and would love to have an additional resource to review.
ncfogles@verizon.net
Laura B. Fogle
TeacherTech,
I wrote to Ouita Myers, and she sent me not only the link to Crispens online handouts and to his PowerPoint on design, but also to her new blog, Do you really need all that?
Thanks for asking!
— dave —