Every piece of presentation software comes with it's own set of templates and backgrounds. The completed templates and backgrounds are a great option when you're short on time and need to create a presentation quickly. However, I have a better idea, instead of spending valuable time choosing the perfect template, use a BLACK or WHITE background.
There are 3 reasons why I recommend sticking to BLACK and WHITE.
1. You will avoid creating busy and visually confusing slides, many backgrounds take up space on your slide and don't leave you enough room for what really counts, your content and message. Your slides will appear clean, simple, and professional.
2. It's much easier to tell what you can or can't see on a black or white background. Busy backgrounds are much more difficult to work with. If you have a hard time reading the slide on your screen, so will your audience.
3. Using a black or white background is a great compliment to the other elements on your slide. The two background colors allow your pictures, charts, graphics, and text to present themselves to your audience without any unnecessary clutter and visual distractions.
BONUS CONTENT
If you'd like to use something other than black or white, follow the two rules below.
When using a dark background, use a light color for your text. When using a light background, use a dark color for your text. In other words...
Dark Background = Light-Colored Text Light Background = Dark-Colored Text
Take a look at the sample slides below and judge for yourself. Which slides would you use in a presentation? Which slides hurt your brain?
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Monday, June 28, 2010
Picking an Image
Images serve as strong links to your content. Your ability to choose and use the correct image can mean the difference between audience comprehension or audience confusion. Aligned images allow your participants to walk away with a visual mnemonic, providing them with a much needed memory boost.
RULES to REMEMBER
Use high quality images
Go BIG or go home
Clip Art is for the BIRDS
They should MATCH your talk
Follow the link below to read Garr Reynolds great post on Inexpensive and Free images.
Monday, May 31, 2010
Use Your Time Wisely!
Attempting to rush through your presentation during the last 10-15 minutes can make your audience feel empty and confused. You want them leaving your session feeling fulfilled. They should be walking away ready to take action and ready to share with others what they’ve just learned. The end of the session is your chance to summarize and reframe your content for your audience; it’s not the time to pile on new content at the speed of light. “We’ve got 10 minutes left, I still have 50 slides to show you so I’m going to move through these really quickly, I apologize, if you have any questions please send me an email.”
If you find yourself rushing to close your presentations, I recommend you practice the tips below.
Rehearse and get comfortable with the amount of time you may spend on a particular section. Don’t walk into a presentation assuming you’ll be able to finish on time without rehearsing your work. If you are using slides during your presentation, print a copy of your slides, 6 to a page, and write the number of minutes you may spend on each slide. Rehearse the content and adjust the time as you go. If you find your self running over your time, start to delete what isn’t necessary. I know deleting is hard, you have so much to cover, and it’s all important, but I promise, it’s going to be okay.
If you happen to be under your time, add a Q&A session, find areas where you can extend the learning, provide time for the participants to share what they’ve learned with each other.
Content covered does not equal content learned. Be purposeful about what you choose to cover, you’ll feel more successful and your audience will too.
Saturday, February 6, 2010
You Will Fail!
You will fail to have a successful presentation if you don’t take the time to learn about the needs of your audience.
Presentations take time. They take time out of the busy lives of the participants. They take time out of the busy life of the presenter. With our time being such a sacred commodity, it is crucial that every presenter have a good understanding of not only what they are presenting, but who they are presenting to. It isn’t necessary to know the detail of everyone in your audience, but it is crucial to process and reflect on why your audience has chosen to listen to you.
Why should your audience bother with putting away their iPhones or Blackberries? How will you change their life? How will they think differently after your presentation? Do you have a solution to their problem? If not, don’t bother presenting, send an email, a memo, a link to a web page, whatever you do don’t waste their time with a presentation.
Before creating your next presentation, ask yourself the following questions:
1. Who are they?
2. Why are they here?
3. What is their background?
4. What’s their problem/issue?
5. How can I help?
6. What’s my central point?
Taking the time to analyze the needs of your audience will immediately make you a better presenter. Most presenters don’t take the time to answer the kinds of questions listed above. They are failing to realize that their audience will drive their approach to their presentation, not their content. Every great teacher & presenter knows that content covered, does not equal content learned.
Be purposeful with your design and don’t be afraid to let your audience guide you.
Presentations take time. They take time out of the busy lives of the participants. They take time out of the busy life of the presenter. With our time being such a sacred commodity, it is crucial that every presenter have a good understanding of not only what they are presenting, but who they are presenting to. It isn’t necessary to know the detail of everyone in your audience, but it is crucial to process and reflect on why your audience has chosen to listen to you.
Why should your audience bother with putting away their iPhones or Blackberries? How will you change their life? How will they think differently after your presentation? Do you have a solution to their problem? If not, don’t bother presenting, send an email, a memo, a link to a web page, whatever you do don’t waste their time with a presentation.
Before creating your next presentation, ask yourself the following questions:
1. Who are they?
2. Why are they here?
3. What is their background?
4. What’s their problem/issue?
5. How can I help?
6. What’s my central point?
Taking the time to analyze the needs of your audience will immediately make you a better presenter. Most presenters don’t take the time to answer the kinds of questions listed above. They are failing to realize that their audience will drive their approach to their presentation, not their content. Every great teacher & presenter knows that content covered, does not equal content learned.
Be purposeful with your design and don’t be afraid to let your audience guide you.
Friday, August 28, 2009
Tinkering School & Slide Design
When Gever Tulley presented to his TED audience, he took advantage of his own images and an amazing roller coaster video clip to send home his message. His slides are a clear example of how much more powerful real world images can move the audience to action. You won't find a single bullet point or long paragraph of text in any of his slides. Instead, you SEE his content, which in turn allows you to visualize and feel his message.
I was ready to speed off to Home Depot, buy my own tools, nails, screws, and large quantities of wood and start my own backyard Tinkering School. His passion had moved me to action. His multimedia provided a strong case for his position as to why kids needed to explore. If he had used the standard PowerPoint presentation format, like the one I created below, it would not have been the same. So, please remember that the example below is what NOT TO DO.
As a presenter, when you have images and videos of the content you are presenting, use them, in fact, abuse them. Now is not the time be bashful or too embarrassed to show off your work. No one remembers a slide full of text or bullet points, images and video will move your audience to action.
I was ready to speed off to Home Depot, buy my own tools, nails, screws, and large quantities of wood and start my own backyard Tinkering School. His passion had moved me to action. His multimedia provided a strong case for his position as to why kids needed to explore. If he had used the standard PowerPoint presentation format, like the one I created below, it would not have been the same. So, please remember that the example below is what NOT TO DO.
As a presenter, when you have images and videos of the content you are presenting, use them, in fact, abuse them. Now is not the time be bashful or too embarrassed to show off your work. No one remembers a slide full of text or bullet points, images and video will move your audience to action.
Thursday, August 13, 2009
From Tinker to Thinker
In the field of education we are in a constant debate and struggle on how to best educate the children in our schools. Terms and teaching philosophies like differentiation, brain-based instruction, response to intervention, constructivism, direct teaching, active learning, the Socratic method, and many, many, many more are used on campuses every single day in the effort to help students learn the content. I have found the video below to be a truly inspirational one, because the lessons learned by the children in the video are devoid of a standard curriculum or program. The kids have been entrusted to use power tools, nails, 2 x 4s and other unimaginable materials that would never be allowed into our schools.
What grabbed my attention about the Tinkering School is that the kids begin with an idea, a vision, a concept which will develop to fruition through hard work, trial and error, practice and constant revision. Not to be overlooked, in my opinion, one of the most important skills we can teach students, is what to do when something fails. The goal of every classroom is to have successful students, but we tend to forget that the process of failure is a critical component of success. The best thought out plans don't tend to work the way we envisioned them. Which causes us to either revise our ideas or even abandon an idea and to start from the beginning. In the real world, where innovation is constantly being pushed to the edge, failure and innovation work together hand in hand. Thomas A. Edison realized failure was something we couldn't live without, "Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up."
The Tinkering School forces students to think, revise, create, test, and sometimes start all over again. Many classrooms use Bloom's Taxonomy to stress the importance of varying the level of questioning to push students to another level of thinking. If you haven't checked out Bloom's lately, the newly revised version of Bloom's no longer ends with Evaluation. Evaluation and Synthesis have switched places at the top of the pyramid, the nouns are now verbs, and Creating sits at the top. From visiting the Tinkering School's website and viewing Tulley's presentation I have a pretty good feeling that the students are exposed to the full level of Bloom's without the overt explicitness as we see, in good faith, sometimes posted in our classrooms. How often will your students get the chance to tinker today?
What grabbed my attention about the Tinkering School is that the kids begin with an idea, a vision, a concept which will develop to fruition through hard work, trial and error, practice and constant revision. Not to be overlooked, in my opinion, one of the most important skills we can teach students, is what to do when something fails. The goal of every classroom is to have successful students, but we tend to forget that the process of failure is a critical component of success. The best thought out plans don't tend to work the way we envisioned them. Which causes us to either revise our ideas or even abandon an idea and to start from the beginning. In the real world, where innovation is constantly being pushed to the edge, failure and innovation work together hand in hand. Thomas A. Edison realized failure was something we couldn't live without, "Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up."
The Tinkering School forces students to think, revise, create, test, and sometimes start all over again. Many classrooms use Bloom's Taxonomy to stress the importance of varying the level of questioning to push students to another level of thinking. If you haven't checked out Bloom's lately, the newly revised version of Bloom's no longer ends with Evaluation. Evaluation and Synthesis have switched places at the top of the pyramid, the nouns are now verbs, and Creating sits at the top. From visiting the Tinkering School's website and viewing Tulley's presentation I have a pretty good feeling that the students are exposed to the full level of Bloom's without the overt explicitness as we see, in good faith, sometimes posted in our classrooms. How often will your students get the chance to tinker today?
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Rule of Thirds
If you attended my PPT Redux workshop, or have read Presentation Zen or Slideology, you may be familiar with the "Rule of Thirds". The rule helps the designer create slides that are more visually appealing by placing the focal points of an image, text, or graphic on a slightly off-centered point. We tend to place our visual elements in the center, thinking it's the correct position to place them, but more often than not, we can utilize these guidelines to present an even stronger visual element. The article below, written by Apollo Ideas does a great job of defining the rule and describes it's role & purpose in creating stunning slides.
Rule of Thirds Blog Post
Rule of Thirds Blog Post
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Sample Slides from my TCASE Presentation
I had about 25-30 minutes to present on significant disproportionality at the TCASE Midwinter Conference. I didn't have access to a document camera or an overhead projector. I decided to use pdf screenshots of my document and orange arrows to ensure the audience could follow along with my overview of the data analysis document. I used the image of a see saw as my visual mnemonic to illustrate & define significant disproportionality. A lot of the slides won't make sense without my narration, but they may serve as examples.
Garr's Take on Brain Rules
Garr's slidedeck utilizes text, images, and humor to provide a preview into Dr. Medina's great book. The book is an easy read and makes nueroscience fun and interesting. Dr. Medina also provides a lot of insight into how we can improve our teaching practices with just a little bit of knowledge on how the brain functions.
PPT REDUX Introduction Slides
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Powerful "Old School" Slides
David Carson gives a funny and powerful presentation on the world of design using full sized screen shots of his own pictures and previous work to convey his message. Sorry, no bullet points.
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Futuristic Manipulatives
These Siftables are amazing pieces of technology and they look like they're fun to play with.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Steve Jobs 2005 Stanford Commencement Speech
Just in case you didn't graduate from Stanford in 2005. Here's your chance to hear Steve's words of wisdom.
Friday, February 20, 2009
Homo Evolutis
Juan Enriquez gives an amazing presentation on the future of our financial crisis and in rebooting our species. I was drawn to his presentation by his use of visuals and humor in what would normally be considered a very serious and possibly boring subject. He easily could have used plenty of bullet points, charts, and graphs, but instead he uses a full sized image of Santa.
Failure = Invention
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, in a two minute interview shares his thoughts on evolving as a company, the customer experience, and how failure is the key to invention.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)