Electronic Presentations

In class:

Administrative:

  • Recap of the week's technology news (Steve Job's passed away on October 5th, 2011)

Instructional:

This week serves as an introductory session to the creation and proper use of electronic presentations. Electronic slides can be a boon or a bust to presentations. During this in-class and online lecture you will learn the tips and tricks for creating effective presentations that do not bore the participant. The lessons learned here will ensure that you engage your audience and not put them to sleep. The outline below guides our discussion:

  • Uses of Presentations
    • Group brainstorming
  • Presentation Tools
    • PowerPoint - Part of the Microsoft Office suite
    • Keynote - Part of the Apple iWork suite
    • Google Docs Presentations - Part of the Google Docs suite
    • Impress - Part of the OpenOffice suite
  • We use this presentation during our lecture to demo presentation software and features
  • Share the presentation using these filetypes
    • .ppt and .pptx - Microsoft PowerPoint format
    • .pps - Self-playing Microsoft PowerPoint
    • .pdf - Good for portability of the presentation across platforms
    • Export each slide as an image to include in documents or online
  • Terminology
    • Slides - individual
    • Decks - collection of slides
    • Background - can be either a solid color, gradient or an image (choose wisely)
    • Transitions (slides and bullets)
    • Notes page - collects thoughts to discuss without cluttering slide with extraneous text and information (not displayed)
    • Template - preconfigured slide styles
    • Master slide - used to create items that will appear on every page
    • Handouts
  • Typography
    • Fonts - previously discussed, but just as important for presentations as they are for word-processing documents (Serif versus sans serif usage)
    • Size - select a size that will be easily viewable by the audience in a given venue
    • Color
      • Important to both presentation and potentially the market brand
      • Color palettes and the difference between Pantone, RGB and HEX
    • Bullets versus numbering
      • Each has a specific usage
      • Presentations do not have to include bullets
  • Layout
    • White/blank space - use to reduce the appearance of clutter
    • Alignment - use a consistent alignment
    • Margins - maintain margins around the slide
  • Images
    • Clipart versus images - original images are good and clipart is passĂ©
    • Copyright
      • Cite original sources
      • Unique images do not violate copyright law
    • Know about Creative Commons
    • Avoid copyright law and use stock image sites such as iStockPhoto
    • Resolution
      • Pixel count is very important depending on the media (print versus electronic)
    • Proportion and aspect ratio
      • This image is correctly proportioned
      • This image is not - very unprofessional and tells the audience you do not know how to utilize images effectively
      • Maintain proportions by using proportional resizing tools
    • Image Formats
      • Bitmap
        • .bmp - Bitmap
        • .jpg - Joint Photographics Expert Group
        • .gif - Graphics Interchange Format
        • .png - Portable Network Graphic
      • Vector
        • .svg - Scaleable Vector Graphics
        • .eps - Encapsulated Postscript
        • .pdf - Portable Document Format
  • Audio
    • Uses in presentations
    • Formats
      • .wav -uncompressed
      • .mp3 - compressed
  • Slides can contain video; however, we will not discuss

Online: