How to Prepare an effective PowerPoint Presentation

25th July 2007 – Today’s lecture was actually a continuation from the previous lesson.

“Who is this pretty Chinese girl?” (a Chinese girl stepped into MK2)

We are introduced to this new face, Ms Ng as our facilitator. “Ooppss…. Not merely a young girl or lady….but a young facilitator too” She looks stern yet sweet and pretty.
Prof Raja Maznah informed us that Ms Ng will be giving a lecture on how to prepare a good PowerPoint slideshow presentation. Last week (18th July), all the groups came up with fantastic slide shows despite of the time constraint. However, the comments received explain that there is room for improvement. Hence, it is indeed a golden opportunity for all of us to learn how to develop effective PowerPoint slides, for future use.

First and foremost, I would like to thank Ms. Ng for highlighting an important matter which has been lingering in my mind for the past years whenever there was a PowerPoint presentation taking place. Let me ask you people this question, ‘What do you feel if a speaker faces his back and reads out every single word from the slides instead of interacting with the audience?’ I assume most of you will be annoyed and some might even switch off. I certainly agree with Ms. Ng on this matter. Why one have to read it to me? I can read it by myself. It is as if the speaker doubts one’s reading skill. Often, people dress up when they are to be the presenter in order to be the centre of attraction during the presentation. If one is going to read chunk by chunk from the slides, he or she is no longer the focus since he or she will not be facing the audience and not interacting with them.

Let us move on to the main agenda of the day:

Ms. Ng gave us valuable tips on how to prepare an effective PowerPoint slideshow. There are a number of tips which can be applied to prepare a good PowerPoint slideshow namely; visual, colour scheme, no cluttering, objective, audience and the list goes on. I would like to use only one word, ‘SIMPLICITY’ to summarize all the tips. This is because; based on my perspective, the various tips mention above is meant to simplify the slides instead of making it congested with unnecessary input.

Ms Ng also showed us some samples of effective PowerPoint slideshows. Among all the samples, I preferred the one prepared by this person named Dick (I can hear his voice in my mind when I type this). I will further explain on the tips learnt under the heading ‘What I have learnt today?’

What I have learnt today?

Basically the lecturer today has triggered me to find out more on what Garr Reynolds has to say about ‘EFFECTIVE POWERPOINT SLIDESHOWS’. Below is an summary of information I have obtained through my online reading.

Let me further unravel on what exactly I have learnt from the tips given by Ms. Ng:

The most significant thing that I have learnt today would be SIMPLICITY is the BEST POLICY. In simple terms, it means to simplify everything rather than complicating it. It is better to only include limited points and words on a slide. If the slide show is full of words, audience might end up reading the slides on their own rather than listening to the speaker.

Besides that, an effective slide show should have limited slide transition and animation. Preferably, one to two type of slide transition throughout the slide show. A variety of slide transition might disturb audiences’ focus. Selection of graphics and visuals also determines the effectiveness of a slide show presentation. The pictures should be relevant to the topic and not simply add on visuals to fill up the empty spaces on the slide. According to Garr Reynolds, “The less clutter you have on your slide, the more powerful your visual message will become”. (quoted from http://www.garreynolds.com/)

Another important aspect is appropriate font and choice of colour used for background and the text. We must always make sure the colour of the slide’s background is of contrast with the text.

Next, I have come to the realization that we must always keep audience in our mind when preparing a PowerPoint slide show. We must know who the audiences are, their interest, prior knowledge, background, needs and so on. For instance, if the audience are children, we must not bombard them with too many detail at a time since they have short-attention span. It would be better to use one word per slide.

Last but not least, I learned that we must quote the reference if we use texts or pictures which is not ours. As a whole, the key element identified is SIMPLICITY.

HOWEVER...

source : http://iplot.typepad.com/iplot/images/simplicity_complexity.jpg

WHY? Keep on scrolling and you will know.

What have I questioned today?

SIMPLICITY…… Well, I do understand that simplicity is the best way to convey messages without jeopardizing it. My first thought was we have less work to do when it comes to preparing slide shows. But my second thought made me to ponder whether SIMPLICITY is really TROUBLE-FREE. In order to create a simple slide show, one might have to put in the maximum effort and do a lot of brain-squeezing. This is because, we must identify the relevant points and the most appropriate visuals to support the topic. It makes our life more complicated.

SIMPLICITY vs. COMPLEXITY

The session today really helped me a lot. Before ending the lesson, we were asked to improve on our slides prepared last week. Actually, my group's slides was fine because ours did follow the tips learnt earlier. There was one limitation in our previous slideshow which was the colour of the pictures. Having exposed to the tips, we modify the pictures to be in gray-scale so that it will be the secondary focus and the text will be the primary focus. The end.

p/s : I have displayed my group's modified slides in the previous post. Sorry, it is only in the slide sorter form. I do not know how to insert it in a slideshow view.

PowerPoint Presentation

18 July 2007 – First and foremost, we were given a form (questionnaire) to be filled in.

“Oh Gosh! I have very limited skills in ICT. Can I cope with this course?” (completing the questionnaire).

I guessed the questionnaire was aimed to obtain information about our prior knowledge on ICT as well as our ICT skills. In fact, it was good to carry out this questionnaire because the lecturer and the facilitators can gain valuable input which will be useful to conduct the course later on. They will be able to match the intended learning objective with our prior knowledge. This is because, new knowledge are derived from previous knowledge after going through the process of accommodation and assimilation. They need to identify our ability before proceeding with a total new skill. For instance, one of the questions requires the information on whether one has experience in using Microsoft Office PowerPoint. If all the respondents answered a ‘YES’, then there will be no problem. But if some of us answered a ‘NO’, then the facilitators might introduce or guide those who are new to this.

Ooppss….. Why am I straying away from the more significant events of the lesson? This simple questionnaire does matters to me. As future educators, I cannot run away from the fact that we need to know the learners’ previous knowledge before planning a lesson. The same goes here, the questionnaire will provide the lecturer and the facilitator with some valuable input to help them to carry out the course so that it will benefit all (my humble opinion only).

Let us get into the core event of the lesson:

We were required to work in groups to prepare a PowerPoint presentation on a given topic and present it as if we are promoting the product. Before proceeding with the task, we are to get into groups of 5 or 6 and give our group a name. Having formed a group, we brainstormed ideas on possible names for our group and all of us agreed upon my suggestion of TECHNO_THINKERS. My group was unfortunate to get an unfamiliar technological gadget, Digital Camera SLR (Single Lens Reflex) as our topic or should I say we were more fortunate to present on this gadget. We will find out this, at the end of this entry.

Ready….Get Set….Go….Without being a slave of procrastination, we quickly divide the task into 3 minor tasks where; Lali and Nanthini are to prepare the slides in terms of animation and to insert the texts, Maisarah and Tussna are to find suitable pictures and basic input while Loura and I have to search for information on advantages of SLR Digital Camera. We were given around an hour only to complete the task. We managed to prepare a simple yet informative PowerPoint slides. We used only key words and phrases to highlight our message instead of chunking all the information into the slides which might confuse the audience. We were almost done when, Mr. Shahril asked us to transfer our PowerPoint presentation to his computer. Meantime, I was trying very hard to digest the information collected since I will be the presenter for my group. I had a tough time digesting the information since I am not familiar with this technological gadget. Below are sample of slides prepared by my group:

(the watch on my wrist shows 2 p.m)
We were the first group to present in MK1. Following us, was other groups which presented on other topics namely; Google Talk, Yahoo Messenger, Hotmail etc. After each groups’ presentation, Mr.Shahril gave constructive comments to help us to further improve on the slides.

What have I learnt today?
I gained valuable information on SLR Digital Camera, its’ functions and the advantages of it. I also did learn about the use of Hotmail, Yahoo Messenger, Google Talk and so on. I also receive some tips to prepare a good slide.

My Question?
The name of this course (Technology in Primary Education), will suggest to us that technology is applied in primary education. Well our presentations on various technological inventions were informative and did provide valuable knowledge but it would not be significant if it is not applied in the context of primary education. Thus, I was just wondering why we were not exposed to the application of these technological inventions in primary education.

My suggestion
Perhaps we can identify and present on ways to use these technological inventions in a classroom.

Welcome everyone..........

Hello everyone........ At last I am ready to blog. All these while I have been struggling to get used to this new environment in University of Malaya(UM). Metaphorically I was lost in the middle of a gigantic forest and without compass. Can you imagine this? My journey of finding the route to get back home before it gets dark was extremely tiring. Throughout my journey, I had to overcome all sorts of obstacles. I had to remove all the sharp stones along my way which disrupts my journey. Yeah... we should remove all the obstacles as proposed by Robert House, an American Psychologist.

House (1971) proposed that one of the things which a leader should do to achieve a goal is to remove the obstacles. Well, as a future teacher, I have to behave like a leader too. Teachers are guide and model for childrens. Teachers are the main leaders in the classroom. In fact, teachers are responsible to remove obstacles and find alternative to make sure the teaching and learning process runs smoothly.

After all, it is part and parcel of students' life to overcome all obstacles such as time factor, Internet access problem etc.... Anyway, I am more settled now and I can proceed with my blog entries without failure.

Thanks for all those who have helped me.

Can u see the pathway? At last I found my way.....

Moving into the World of Technolgy

First PKEY3101 class

11th July 2007 - Today was my first lecture for the course PKEY3101 and here I have described and reflected on my experiences in this class. My first thought when I entered the computer lab (Makmal 2), was I should hurry to get hold of a computer. This is perhaps due to my previous experiences where there was always not enough personal computers (PC) for everyone. It is not the case here. The computer lab is well-equipped and spacious too.

When Profesor Dr. Raja Maznah informed us that we are required to write blogs in a weekly basis, I was terrified. I have neither the experience nor the slightest idea of how to go about blogging. This is the first ever blog I have ever done. Frankly speaking, I have always perceived blogging as a waste of time. However, the thought-provoking question of 'Why Blog?' posed by Prof. Raja has opened up my eyes on blogging. Below are the reasons which I have gathered during the lecture on why one blog?

Why blog?
~ record experiences

~ voice out opinion

~ publish stories or poem for FREE!

~ self-reflection

~ express feelings

~ to make announcement

~ to advertise product

The point of publishing stories for free raised by one of my course mates caught my attention. Well, as future primary educators we can utilize the stories published in the blog as our teaching materials in the primary ESL classroom. Instead of using common contemporary stories for young learners, teachers should grab pupils' attention by developing new and interesting resources published by various people of varied interets. One might question the practicality of doing this. Well, we can always adapt the material to certain extent to suit the curriculum while retaining portion of the material which appears to be interesting and suitable.

Moving on next, Prof Raja made us list down the reasons for integrating technology in Primary Education. Below are few of the reasons collected during the brainstorm session:

~ goes beyond the classroom

~ make life easier

~ fun & interesting

~ new discovery

~ enhance teaching & learning

~ integrate real life situation

~ diverse experience

Well, I do agree that integration of technology in primary education can make teachers' life easier and make learning fun. However, i doubt the practicality of integrating technology in teaching and learning processes. Based on my personal experiences, it has always been devastating for us students to shift our focus to traditional method of using blackboard and text books from modern gadgets like camputers and return to our classroom to continue the lesson instead of occupying the computer labs as scheduled. In my humble opinion, the issue here is not whether the ICT facilities are easily accessible in schools but whether the teachers are skilled in using ICT. There is no point of having a large number of high-tech computers arranged row by row in an air-conditioned room without being utilized. The computers are only going to collect dust and serve as home for spiders.

"Dirty computers : Revenge of the dust bunnies" ( source: techrepublic.com)

In that case, the problem lies not in the ICT tools but its our mentality not to change. We are just not willing to take risk. We will never know what we are able to do until we try it out. If we want to lead a luxurious and comfortable life, we need to work it out. If the Wright brothers did not strive hard and take risk, we would have been still sailing on the ships and boats for months or years. Thus, we need to change our mentality towards technology. Teachers especially need to be willing to take risk and equip themselves with this ICT skills and not avoiding the ICT tools to the maximum. Therefore, this course, ICT in Primary Education would be a good start for many future teachers of this cohort who are IT blind.

Next, Prof. Raja brainstormed us on the use of ICT during our School Experience Programme (SEP). I had to rewind my memory, but it wasn't that difficult to recall. Yeah.. I had an opportunity to observe a Mathematics lesson using ICT tool. The teacher used a Mathematics CD-Rom with the aid of LCD to carry out the lesson. Actually, the content of the CD-Rom is very interesting and definitely will appeal to childrens. However, the lesson did not turn out to be as successful as been expected. Instead, it was a failure because the teacher was not highly skilled in utilizing it. It does not mean that with the help of technology, teachers are supposed to be relaxed. In this lesson, the teacher just stood at the teacher's table while the pupils are trying to grasp the mathematic concepts and do the exercises which was displayed on the screen. The worse thing was the volume was too low until those who were sitting in the front rows also could hardly catch the words.

This particular lecture has changed my impression on technology to certain extent. All these while I have been utilizing technology merely for entertainment and for completing tasks. This class had made me to question my own perception towards technology and my ability to use these ICT skills. I hope that this course will be useful for me to equip myself with ICT skills which will be very useful for my future career.

p/s- more post will be posted. Sorry yeah for the delay.... had some problems....