In elementary school most students do at least one PowerPoint presentation.  As you might expect they explore and utilize just about every annoying sound effect, nauseating background color and dizzying animation feature imaginable to make their slideshow.  There’s nothing wrong with this, it is a great way for them to learn about the features available in PowerPoint.  But if you want your students to ever develop a sense of design or you're working with professional adults who are still doing these things then you need some guidelines to improve their PowerPoint presentations.

Here are some very reasonable guidelines for PowerPoint Presentations (they are the same ones we stress for 7^th graders for reference):

1)     Use the same background for all the slides.  When in doubt use one of the Design Templates that came with PowerPoint.  These templates guarantee a professional looking background every time.

2)     Pick High Contrast colors.  High contrast means light letter on a dark background for example.  High contrasting colors makes it much easier to read the slides.  When in doubt use one of the Design Templates that came with PowerPoint.  This guarantees high contrast colors.

3)     Use one good picture or graphic per slide.  PowerPoint is a visual medium so please use pictures and graphics.  Just make sure the pictures are relevant to the topic and large enough for the audience to see and appreciate them.

4)   Minimum of 36 pts for the font size.  Remember you’re making a presentation and not an eye exam.  Your audience should be able to read the slides without binoculars.

5)   Maximum of 5 lines of text per slide.   Use bullet lists and phrases rather than whole sentences.  Plan on explaining the bullets and phrases as part of your oral presentation.

6)   Please don’t read the slides to your audience.  Generally speaking all the members of your audience are literate.  Instead of reading the slides to them use the slide as a launching point to tell them more about your topic.

A 4 minute video on the importance of not reading your slides.

7)   Check your spelling and grammar.  Nothing distracts the attention of your audience more than spelling & grammar errors.

8)   Use good presentation skills.  Make sure you have good eye contact, you’re loud enough, and don’t forget to practice your presentation before you present.  These things are very important to your audience and they should be important to you.

You don’t have to listen to me about bad PowerPoint presentations.  Here’s a pretty good commentary from a California high school student concerning bad PowerPoint presentations:  http://www.plasticsurgerydr.com/rpp.html

For you Social Studies Teachers out there here’s a hypothetical version of the Gettysburg Address done by Abraham Lincoln using PowerPoint:  http://www.norvig.com/Gettysburg/index.htm

Finally here’s a website with more in-depth PowerPoint advice for educators published by Jamie McKenzie on his site (From Now On):  http://www.fno.org/sept00/powerpoints.html

PRACTICE ACTIVITY:   Try opening a blank PowerPoint presentation and try to find the premade (guaranteed to look good) Design Templates. 

Look for a button like this on the Tool Bar: 

TO KEEP ON LEARNING:  If you're looking for more ways to improve your PowerPoint presentations try searching the internet for:

PowerPoint backgrounds
PowerPoint layouts
PowerPoint templates
Better PowerPoints
PowerPoint tutorials
 

Have a Nice Day!

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