Many lecturers use PowerPoint presentations to visually engage their students as key concepts are discussed in class. Others...well is it a case of "death by ppt" with too many bullets, too much text and too few images? There are many ways to design awesome presentations, embed videos without live streaming, fill with great creative commons images, visual prompts, screenshots and more. Here are a few suggestions to help you make your PowerPoints awesome and a few alternative presentation tools! If you have some of your own to add, please share them in the comments section at the end of this post.
You will find many more videos on Youtube that share a similar message. They all say the same thing - powerful images, very little text, simple and visually stimulating, no bullets and a short video clip that is NOT live streamed (does not require internet connectivity)! So you have to ask youself, where do I get powerful images from and how do I download videos onto my computer to then embed in my PowerPoint? And what are the alternatives to using bullets?
The MS PowerPoint Blog offers lots of tips and video tutorials. Whether you are still using PowerPoint 2007, 2010 (on all VC computers) or the latest 2012 version, this blog and Youtube offer many great tips.
Check out this tutorial: Transform your class presentation with video and images : a 5 minute makeover video.
8 PowerPoint Tips and quick wins!
To ensure that you do not live stream videos (if connectivity is slow it will cause buffering and that will kill your presentation!) you need to download them onto your computer hard drive first before you can embed them into your ppt to get the best results. There are many Web 2.0 applications that you can choose from to download videos for educational purposes like RealPlayer (free version), WebVideoFetcher or YTByClick.
Your Own: keep a file of your own photos on your hard drive to use.
Royalty Free: this will cost a little money but the quality and orginality of the images are awesome! Try istockphoto, dreamtime, shutterstock or 123RF. They do offer some freebies of older less popular images.
Free images or Creative Commons (attribution required and conditions differ): for the best "freebies" go to freedigitalphotos, flickr creative commons or stock.xchng.
Screenshots: Skitch is great for annotating screenshots! And is free.
And what alternatives are there to MS PowerPoint?
Prezi is making a huge impact on the presentation market. It is quite technical initially but with some practice you can create visually rich and dynamic presentations with great zooming features and embed many types of media too. You can even convert your powerpoint slides into a prezi!
Baiba Svenca curates much on digital presentations. Explore the pages of her site for lots more alternatives: Digital Presentations in Education.
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Kevin Lazarus
Posted at 2012-04-04 18:28:31
if one is confident about their subject knowledge then the Power Point is their tool to be creative. Yes, even the dry subjects gets a new life. Lets embrace creativity within this space and have fun- otherwise you too will fall alseep during your presentations.
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