Scripps College : IT Workshop : Powerpoint Pedagogy

PowerPoint Pedagogy online handout

Below are guidelines for creating and delivering effective presentations, online tutorials to learn or improve your skill with PowerPoint, useful online resources from Microsoft and other sources, guidelines for assessing PowerPoint assignments, and sites where you can find free PowerPoint templates and copyright-free graphics, sound, and video for your presentations.

Powerpoint Uses

• presentations (formal and informal) for delivery via a computer or with slides;
• overhead transparencies; and
• small flyers, signs, etc.

Presentation Guidelines

• Presentation text should be talking points only.
• Keep some light on in the room, preferably as far away from the screen as possible.
• Face the audience as you discuss the slides in your presentation.
• Use three or less slides per minute.
• For easy reading, use fonts that are at least 24 point (follow templates until the default font size starts to shrink)
• Try to use dark backgrounds and light type on slides in good settings - low light/good data projector and screen. If you are not sure about the setting, use light backgrounds with dark type.
• Avoid reading each slide. Slide content should provide a simplification of information that you explain in greater detail.
• Try not to lecture for more than 10 minutes. Break up lectures with active learning exercises.
• Audiences may find printed copies of slides useful. Slides can be printed three to a page to allow space for notes. Handouts can be printed in greyscale.
• Plan for contingencies with a paper handout and presentation on alternative media.

Useful Online Resources

• PowerPoint - Best Practices for Developing and Delivering Effective Visual Aids, short, useful presentation skills article
• Presenters University (sponsored by Proxima) - how-to articles by presentation experts, free templates, and other useful information
• Indezine.com Microsoft PowerPoint resources: links, articles, and tutorials
• Road Tools Laptop presentation tips: font size and selection, color, seating
• Google directory > Computers > Software > Presentation > Microsoft PowerPoint
• Secrets of PowerPoint's drawing tool

Evaluating Powerpoint Presentation Assignments

PowerPoint assignments are an effective assessment tool that encourages higher level thinking. There are a variety of strategies to evaluate PowerPoint presentations: ways to assess research, presentation content, technical PowerPoint criteria, and teamwork if the assignment is a group project.

• RubiStar's free rubrics for project-based learning activities. See Multimedia section to generate a PowerPoint assessment form with custom categories. Based, in part, on Pastore's Multimedia Project Evaluation Rubric, adapted from Multimedia Mania....
  • Multimedia Mania 2004: detailed judge's rubric covering mechanical, multimedia, information structures, documentation, and quality of content, from N. Carolina State University.
  • A PowerPoint Rubric, University of Wisconsin, Stout. Suggested for self-assessment and peer feedback.
• Project Presentation PowerPoint Evaluation Form, open-ended, question-based form from Westfield State College.
• Scoring Power Points: by Jamie McKensie, From Now On: The Educational Technology Journal, Vol 10|No 1|September|2000 - article with useful guidelines for creating compelling and persuasive presentations, "antidotes for Powerpoint poisoning."

Free Powerpoint Template Sources

• from Presenters University
• from Microsoft - for Windows and for Macintosh
• from Sonia Coleman (208 for personal use) and tutorials
• from WebSiteEstates.com

Copyright-free Graphic, Sound, and Video Resources

• Claremont Colleges Digital Library: "facilitates learning and transforms scholarship by providing the technological infrastructure for disseminating teaching and research materials to students, faculty, and scholars."
• Internet Archive: an impressive number of moving images, audio, and text digital artifacts. Internet Archive's WayBack Machine holds 10 billion web pages archived from 1996 including an interesting collection of Web Pioneers. The Prelinger Archives contains over 48,000 "ephemeral" (advertising, educational, industrial, and amateur) films.
• Library of Congress: especially for researchers. See the Minerva Web Preservation Project of digital primary source materials.
• free clip art and media from Microsoft
• Google directory - Computers > Graphics > Web > Free (These sites are often laden with advertising to "pay the rent.")

Online Tutorials

• Scripps PowerPoint User Guides;
• Creating and Showing a PowerPoint Presentation on Campus (PDF)
• Active learning with PowerPoint: from the University of Minnesota. "Despite the fact that so much has been written about PowerPoint's weaknesses, instructors still feel compelled to adapt PowerPoint to the classroom. This tutorial is designed to help you capitalize on those aspects of PowerPoint that lend themselves best to engaging students interests."
• PowerPoint 2003 Basics Tutorial from the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire.
• PowerPoint in Education: increasing the impact of lectures and presentations, from Microsoft
• Patrick Crispen's PowerPoint Files: see Now That I Know PowerPoint, How Can I Use It to Teach? (Example of saving PowerPoint presentations in HTML and Adobe's (formerly Macromedia's) FlashPaper to create an online PowerPoint presentation) and other useful resources.

Book Tutorials (for those who prefer paper)

• How to Do Everything with Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2003 by Ellen Finkelstein (2003)
• Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac OS X : Visual QuickStart Guide by Steve Schwartz (2004)

Microsoft's PowerPoint resources

[Note - site changes regularly; if you hit a dead link search the site.]

For MacIntosh Users

• PowerPoint 2004 information
• PowerPoint 2004 how-to articles and tips (includes cross-platform compatibility information)

For Windows Users

• PowerPoint 2003: product information, main web resource page
• PowerPoint 2003 information - includes tutorials, templates, training
  • Microsoft PowerPoint Tutorials
  • PowerPoint 2003 courses: 24 tutorials
• "Crabby Office lady" - columns "with an attitude" began in 2004, covers all Microsoft software
• Tips for Teachers (all Microsoft software)
• Choosing the best graphics format for the job

Food for Thought

• Learning to Love PowerPoint by David Byrne (Wired Magazine, 9/2003)
• PowerPoint is Evil by Edward Tufte, (Wired Magazine, 9/2003)
• PowerPoint Makes You Dumb by Clive Thompson (New York Times, 12/14/03)
• Is PowerPoint the Devil? by Julia Keller (Chicago Times, 1/22/03)
• Lincoln's Gettysburg Address as a Powerpoint presentation: by Peter Norvig

Design your presentations and your meetings to take advantage of the people gathered there, not to bore them. If everyone has set their remarks in stone ahead of time (all using the same templates) then there is little room for the comments of one to build on another, or for a new idea to arise collaboratively from the meeting. Homogeneity is great for milk, but not for ideas. Use visual aids to convey visual information: photographs, charts, or diagrams. But do not use them to give the impression that the matter is solved, wrapped up in a few bullet points. – Peter Norvig, PowerPoint: shot with its own bullets

Moving PowerPoint Files

Sakai: http://sakai.claremont.edu:

Accessing the Network from Off-Campus Using NetStorage Web Access

• https://netstorage.scrippscollege.edu/NetStorage
• Detailed instructions (PDF)

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