PowerPoint for Good Presentation: How we used it to Ace Our Presentation!

PowerPoint for Good Presentation: How we used it to Ace
Our Presentation!

The day had finally come! The entire office was bursting
with excitement and our hearts were pounding at the thought of presenting to
the board of directors. We had been working on this presentation non-stop for
the past few weeks and nothing could have prepared us for what was about to
take place. Then it happened, we started our presentation and it was as if
every single person in that room was looking right through us, as if we didn’t
exist at all! It felt like hours had passed by before I could get off stage and
just when I thought things couldn’t get any worse, they did!

The Big Day

We had been preparing for this presentation all semester, so
you can imagine how anxious we were as the time drew near. The night before our
presentation, there was a huge storm. We lost power at our house and the
electricity was out everywhere in the city. Power would not be restored until
hours after our presentation and I was terrified that no one would show up
because of the storm. I felt like all of my hard work had been wasted, but then
I remembered that we had actually used powerpoint for good presentation when
giving our presentation about how power points are harmful to promote awareness
about what’s happening with them. So instead of showing our slides on the
projector screen, we typed up a slideshow on the computer and plugged it into
an iPad. It turned out that almost everyone came to our presentation anyway!
And they really liked what they saw–everyone said we did a really great job
even though there were only five people in attendance. So now I’m happy that
something went wrong and I realized just how important it is to use powerpoint
for good presentations rather than showing regular slides from your computer or
laptop screen! The point is that PowerPoint can be used for good purposes. I
know some teachers who use PowerPoint to help their students visualize
difficult math problems by projecting their PowerPoint presentation on the
board, and others who create elaborate presentations for history classes about
historical figures. I also know that many professors have started using
PowerPoint as a way to get their students involved in discussions in class;
they’ll ask students beforehand to prepare questions that might come up during
lecture time, then project these questions onto the board while they’re
teaching and encourage discussion amongst themselves. We’ll have more
information soon about using PowerPoint for good presentations. Stay tuned! We
will share additional info about what we discovered during our research here
very soon.

The Outline

1. We used PowerPoint for good presentation because it
helped us to have a well organized presentation with a clear message.

2. PowerPoint presentations are especially useful when
you’re presenting your information in front of an audience, because they can be
saved as PDFs and printed out if need be.

3. it’s also a great way to get your message across in an
easy-to-understand format, which is perfect when you’re trying to tell someone
about something technical or difficult that they might not understand
otherwise.

4. You can use powerpoints as templates too, so if you find
one that looks like the right fit for what you want your final product to look
like then go ahead and use it as is! It’ll save you some time and effort, plus
it’ll give off a more polished feel. 5. If you want to create your own PowerPoint
from scratch though, there are tons of resources online where you can get help
making the slides look how you’d like them to before using them in the
presentation itself. 6. The sky is really the limit here – if it’s something
that helps make your message come alive and make things easier for your
listeners, then why wouldn’t you use PowerPoint? 1. Use color coding to
organize the points you want to make.

2. Add animations, text boxes, and images on top of your
slides! Animation will keep the audience entertained while at the same time
staying focused on your slide show!

3. Use smart art diagrams that allow for visuals without
being overwhelming. A lot of people think this means spending hours figuring
out shapes but there are plenty of quick solutions out there (think pre-made
templates!). You can also cut down on your work by incorporating old screenshots
into a new presentation. Other ways to make your work easier include using
fonts that won’t require lots of time downloading or selecting hide for
animations you don’t want to use. Not only does this take up less space but it
saves you time too. And speaking of saving yourself time, try adding hyperlinks
into your presentations whenever possible!

Don’t forget to spice up the copy once in awhile by adding
titles, subtitles, and bulleted lists throughout the presentation for extra
organization and clarity. Also take advantage of transitions such as wipes or
fades that help add flow between different points during the slideshow.

Practice Makes Perfect

We’re not going to lie, our first presentation felt a little
like jumping off the high dive. It was nerve-wracking and didn’t go as well as
planned, but we were able to get up and try again. We used PowerPoint for good
presentation by creating our slides in advance, practicing in front of friends
and family before presenting at school, and rehearsing on stage with the
projector. All of these tools helped us feel prepared when the unexpected
happened – when people asked questions or had ideas that weren’t included in
our slides. We even made PowerPoint comics about planning a presentation using
Powerpoint. If you want more information about how to plan a great
presentation, take a look!

We created PPT Comics for our blog post. The comic is based
on an idea from How to Create a Great Presentation Using Microsoft PowerPoint
by University of Wisconsin Platteville. The comic features one man asking the
other to give him an idea for a presentation topic; he eventually gets
frustrated and goes away only to return later having thought of his own topic.
The next frame depicts them discussing their presentations before they start,
with one stating that they should both use powerpoint while another says that
they should just speak without visuals (with no text). The next frame has them
standing side-by-side giving their presentations; one is using PowerPoint while
the other speaks without any visuals (no text). The last frame depicts them
standing side-by-side giving their presentations; both are using PowerPoint.
After reading this comic, ask your self which presentation technique do you
think is better? Why? Which would be most effective for which type of audience?
What else can be done to make a presentation effective? Use stories, jokes, and
humor to keep the audience engaged. Try showing a video clip related to what
you’re talking about so that they can see what you’re trying to explain in
words. For example, if I’m talking about gardening tips, I could show my
YouTube clip from my gardening channel where I teach viewers how to plant
plants successfully indoors. And finally, always be yourself! Pretend the entire
world is watching and there will probably still be some people who don’t agree
with what you say because there’s always someone who disagrees with
something…

Final Thoughts

For most of us, PowerPoint is a tool that is used with the
goal of entertaining and informing an audience. It’s not often used with the
intention of making a difference in someone’s life.

As a social justice organization, we have found PowerPoint
to be an extremely powerful medium for carrying out our mission. With this
tool, we can share our stories and make our message heard by audiences all
around the world. We are able to communicate very complex information through
pictures and graphics. The reach of powerpoint presentations extends beyond
PowerPoint slideshows; using public service announcements on YouTube, or
creating videos on Vimeo has opened up new avenues for presenting the work we
do at the White House Council on Women and Girls.

When developing presentations at the White House Council on
Women and Girls, we made sure that PowerPoint was only one part of a
multi-pronged strategy to achieve impactful outcomes. There were two phases in
our process: 1) Create a compelling presentation about an issue affecting girls
or women; 2) Distribute it widely across multiple platforms. To do this, we
partnered with schools like Johns Hopkins University, New York University, and
Howard University to distribute these talks in classrooms as well as
professional organizations like National Society of Black Engineers. One
presentation from HHS Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell reached over 3 million
people worldwide on the first day alone.

We’ve found that when you’re giving a presentation, keep
your content short (five minutes or less). Using simple design principles will
also help you create something visually appealing and accessible for everyone –
from designers who don’t have experience designing slides to those who speak
English as a second language. Finally, try editing your slideshow into five
second clips so they’re easy to watch online without sound. You might want to
embed them on a website or upload them to YouTube for easy viewing. Videos
allow you to use color coding or animations, which could be helpful depending
on what your talking about.

Finally, try editing your slideshow into five second clips
so they’re easy to watch online without sound. You might want to embed them on
a website or upload them to YouTube for easy viewing. Videos allow you to use
color coding or animations, which could be helpful depending on what your
talking about.