Powerful+Presentations

__The Case for Powerful and Productive Presentations__: by Kenneth Shelton & Robert Craven

A few simple ideas for making your Power Point presentations more effective: 1. Make it visual
 * visual presentations convey more immediate information more quickly than text and engage the viewer
 * the less text the better
 * use the whole screen and add text over your images
 * use quality images for your Power Points

2. Make it colorful
 * color is much more effective than black and white
 * we look to color images before black and white
 * (they illustrated this by using images of B&W fruit vs. color fruit)
 * color evokes an emotional response and can help in memory retention much more than text only presentations

3. Don'ts
 * Don't read your slides to your audience (students should practice this too in their presentations)
 * Don't turn your back to your audience (students do this a lot)
 * Don't have text only slides

4. Do's
 * Use color
 * Be simple
 * Use quality pictures
 * Be visual first, text second
 * Put yourself in the shoes of your audience (Would you like to sit through your own presentation?)
 * Develop a your presentation around a simple message or a story...your slide should be used to add emphasis around a major point or idea

5. What tech tools can help me make better presentations?
 * For images:
 * istock photos ($)
 * openphoto
 * Flickr
 * Library of Congress (Loc.org)
 * stock.xchng
 * creativecommits.org
 * wikimedia commons
 * public domain photos
 * pdphoto.org
 * pics for learning
 * For Presentations and Slides:
 * 280 slides
 * slideshare
 * google docs
 * authorstream
 * ispringfree (to save a ppt with video/audio animation)