PowerPoint/Keynote Presentations

I recently helped a 5th grade class create basic PowerPoint presentations on Native Americans. The teacher asked me to teach the basics of creating slides for the presentation, then go over a few rules to guide them in creating effective presentations. I found a couple of great blog posts and resources to help.

First, I wanted to get a good, basic list of presentation tips. Michael Hyatt lists 5 Rules for Better Presentations on his blog. In summary, they are:

1. Don’t give your presentation software center stage.
2. Create a logical flow to your presentation.
3. Make your presentation readable.
4. Remember, less is more.
5. Distribute a handout.

I recommend you take a closer look at his explanations about these 5 tips, particularly the point about distributing a handout. I am not usually a fan of providing paper copies of almost anything, but I do agree with him that providing a copy of your slides at the end of a presentation lessens the stress of those listeners who feel they need to write everything down. Perhaps the compromise it to provide listeners with a link to an electronic copy of your presentation.

After offering some basics to the students, I wanted to be able to show them some PowerPoint examples, particularly dealing with tip #3. I searched Google for some PowerPoints about PowerPoint. (Side note: For those who are not aware, if you add filetype:ppt to the end of your Google search, all of your search results will be actual PowerPoint presentations.) I found a presentation with examples and non-examples of PowerPoint slides. It reviewed concepts like limiting the number of words on a slide, not over-doing animations, sounds, and color, choosing readable fonts, etc. Click here to download this presentation.

I am a fan of the Apple iWork software, so I do feel I should mention that Keynote is a great program to use for creating presentations as well. For one thing, I more familiar with Apple menus and navigation. I find my way around Keynote much more easily than in PowerPoint. I also love the animation and movie-making capabilities in Keynote. If you've never given it a try, I highly recommend it!