Microsoft PowerPoint is considered to be one of the most ubiquitous tools for corporate presentations as well as a rapid e learning authoring tool in the classroom. I have witnessed how it became part of learning and training as it replaced the need for blackboards, whiteboards and overhead projectors with acetate sheets. The user-friendly presentation software program made teaching and training a lot easier and lessons more engaging with its animation features and variety of graphics available.
I was interested in finding out if this extremely easy rapid e learning authoring tool have something more to offer than just your garden variety presentations so I researched about this application to see if we can somehow improve the way we use it.
A little background. Steve Jobs jokingly (or maybe not) accused Bill Gates of stealing concepts from the original Macintosh computer. He’s right of course. And PowerPoint is just one of it. It was originally developed by Dennis Austin and Thomas Rudkin from Forethought, Inc. to be used by the Macintosh but in 1987, Microsoft acquired the company and continued to improve upon the software. This resulted to PowerPoint 97 which is pretty much close to what the present version is like. Only a few changes were made in subsequent versions.
In using the PPT, I’ve always focused on a single slide – adding text, graphics, and animation before moving on the next slide. However, it seems I was doing it all wrong. It is advisable to arrange and organize the outline of the texts first before adding graphics and animation. At the core of every presentation is the content so it’s important for a presenter to make sure the sequencing of the content makes sense.
If you can use graphs and visual elements instead of text, then do so. In a presentation, a visual representation often gives a more dynamic impact and increased retention if trainees and students can comprehend concepts visually. Having more graphics decreases the chance for boredom and let’s face it, no one likes to read that much especially on screen or on projection.
Check your text format. It’s important to choose colors that contrast with the background so that text is easily visible especially on projectors. Also, check the size of the font and don’t use anything lower than a 24 point size.
