Powerpoint Presentations- Meaning and effective PowerPoint presentation

 Powerpoint Presentations

PowerPoint is a complete presentation graphics package. It gives you everything you need i.e. produce a professional-looking presentation. PowerPoint offers word processing, outlining, drawing, graphing, and presentation management tools- all designed to be easy to use and learn.

The following gives you a quick overview of what you can do in PowerPoint: 

1. When you create a presentation using PowerPoint, the presentation is made up of a series of slides. The slides that you create using PowerPoint can also be presented as overhead transparencies or 35mm slides.

2. In addition to slides, you can print audience handouts, outlines, and speaker's notes. 

3. You can format all the slides in a presentation using the powerful Slide Master which will be covered in the tutorial.

4. You can keep your entire presentation in a single file- all your slides, speaker's notes, and audience handouts.

5. You can import what you have created in other Microsoft products, such as Word and Excel into any of your slides.

PowerPoint presentations consist of a number of individual pages or "slides". The "slide" analogy is a reference to the slide projector. A better analogy would be the "foils" (or transparencies/plastic sheets) that are shown with an overhead projector, although they are in decline now. Slides may contain text, graphics, sound, movies, and other objects, which may be arranged freely. The presentation can be printed, displayed live on a computer, or navigated through at the command of the presenter. For larger audiences the computer display is often projected using a video projector. Slides can also form the basis of webcasts.

PowerPoint provides three types of movements:

Entrance, emphasis, and exit of elements on a slide itself are controlled by what PowerPoint calls Custom Animations.

Transitions, on the other hand, are movements between slides. These can be animated in a variety of ways.

Custom animation can be used to create small story boards by animating pictures to enter, exit or move.

PowerPoint provides numerous features that offers flexibility and the ability to create professional presentation. One of the features provides the ability to create a presentation that includes music which plays throughout the entire presentation or sound effects for particular slides. In addition to the ability to add sound files, the presentation can be designed to run, like a movie, on its own. PowerPoint allows the user to record the slide show with narration and a laser pointer. You may customize slide shows to show the slides in different order than originally designed and to have slides appear multiple times. Microsoft also offers the ability to broadcast the presentation to specific users via a link and Windows Live.

How to make an effective PowerPoint presentation 

1. Plan your content first- Many experts have warned about the dangers of planning the presentation in PowerPoint. Many people start the process of creating a presentation in PowerPoint, by entering text on the slides. This is a very bad idea. The content should drive the design. So the most important recommendation is to plan your content first.

Always start your presentation on paper. Draw your ideas, link relationships between concepts, and create a storyboard. The first thing that presenters need to do is to ask these important questions before creating their presentation. What's the purpose of your presentation? What do you want your audience to do because of your presentation? What message do you want to deliver that will help you achieve that purpose?

2. Delete Powerpoint template- Powerpoint templates come from the mindset that PowerPoint slides are like documents and so should be branded. Templates add clutter and distract from the visual impact of a slide. When it comes to slide design, you shouldn't think of decoration, but of communication. Everything you add to your slides should have a positive impact on the message you are communicating. This is why I always use a very simple design theme for my slides.

There is no direct research on the use of templates in PowerPoint. However, there is research that shows that any material (pictures, sounds or information) which is not conceptually relevant to the topic harms learning. 

3. One idea per slide- Use each slide to express one idea. Presenters can completely transform their presentations from boring bullets to high-impact visuals by putting one point on a slide. Presenters must assure that slides follow good cognitive design principles. Something as simple as having only one main idea per slide makes a huge difference. 

4. Support the headline with graphic evidence- Instead of bullets, support your points with graphic evidence. This can include photos, images, charts and diagrams. Say the words and put the visuals on your slides. Support your points with creative and relevant images. 

5. You don't always need a slide- Not every point in your presentation needs a slide. You only need a visual aid in a presentation if you would need one in conversation. Slides should be projected only when they serve the presentation. What do you do when you're not showing a slide? You insert a plain black slide into your slideshow. This is a simple concept, and yet it is profound when you use it all the time.

6. Put detail in the handouts- If you want to follow best practice, simply printing out your PowerPoint slides to create a handout is no longer an option. Well-designed slides are terrible handouts since they lack the on-slide text necessary to form an informative narrative. Create handouts that are distributed after the presentation. Your handouts are the repository for detailed information.