Tuesday, April 3, 2012

effective presentations

This week we had an "ugly slide" and were told to transform it into something better.  I used Microsoft PowerPoint for the purpose of time-I am already very familiar with it.  Eventually I want to learn to use Prezi; I heard about it by someone who works in the media industry.  I tend to not put a lot of extras into my presentations using PowerPoint because I find them distracting when I am trying to present.  I know they make a nice unique presentation though.  I thought it was interesting in the lecture that one should use no more than 30 slides for an hour long presentation.  I don't like too many slides because it is hard to keep up; however, I also don't like to have many words on a slide (just key words really), so I think there is a fine line.  Readability is definitely the most important consideration for me when making a PowerPoint.  It is frustrating to be in an audience and not be able to see the presentation because there are too many words and the background and word colors are too close together.

1 comment:

Dr. Deb's Blog said...

Great point. So you have to find a balance between the two (having too few slides overloaded with information or too many slides that you can't make it through the presentation). The "30" for an hour presentation isn't a hard and fast rule, but a good one to use a guide. If you move slides quickly, it can work. Hopefully, "you" are the presentation and not your slide. As long as you keep in mind your audience and what you like/dislike about presentations, you won't go wrong.