We live in an era where meetings rooms and classrooms are plagued with PowerPoint presentations (or one of the programs that resemble it). If you ask anybody to do a presentation or talk about a particular topic, there is a 90% chance they will get back to you saying they have a PowerPoint presentation ready to hit the screen!
That brings me to the first question, is power point over used? Yes, it is. In higher education, it is widely used by most instructors or lecturers to deliver information to learners on a particular topic. Now, think about this for a moment. If students look at PowerPoint slides in every class they attend per day, are they really going to look forward to learning if, you are going to pull up yet another bunch of slides? The chances are very unlikely.
It is almost like we have forgotten how to present without a PowerPoint presentation. This has led to a lot of dull and rote presentations also known as, Death by PowerPoint. Death by PowerPoint is one of the fastest trending topics for discussion in fact, a quick search on Google brings up
2,020,000 results.
I did a short presentation on this very topic a couple of months ago. Before, I started my presentation I posed a question to my audience, “What was your worst power point experience?” As, I was jotting down their answers which were, too much information on one slide, tiny font, distracting backgrounds or animations, reading directly from slides, bad clip art, etc. I realized my presentation addressed almost all of points they brought up. Not only was this a smooth bridge – in but, it also got me thinking if the audience is focusing on these areas during the presentation, were they actually engaged during the presentation? I mean the first think they probably said to their friend sitting beside them was, “I could hardly read. The font was too small!”
Lastly, does power point support learning? In my opinion, a PowerPoint presentation is nothing but, a visual aid for the presenter. Think of it like a story board to take your students through the class or session, all the while offering opportunities for them to converse with you and each other to share stories and ideas. Therefore, a PowerPoint on its own does not support learning. It needs to be combined creatively with other active learning techniques, to ensure that the learners are engaged throughout the session. Some ways to do this include:
Incorporating different types of media within your presentation to appeal to different types of learners. Engaging them through various senses like illustrating points through pictures, music, demonstrations and videos. Also, including a tangible item that the learners can hold, feel, smell, etc. can be quite effective. For example, in a presentation I attended on the benefits of Turmeric, the presenter bought a sample of the curcumin root from which Turmeric powder is derived.
Another option that is gaining popularity is, incorporating social media into a presentation. This a great way to engage learners before, during and after your presentation. For example, instructors can send their students content that they will be presented or discussed in class beforehand. This can be a light reading, definitions of important terminology, etc. Include a Twitter hashtag so learners can start discussing before the class. The instructor could include some of the tweets in the in class presentation.
Lastly, engage learners in activities that allow them to reflect and discuss on what is being presented. It avoids the learners from zoning out, play with their phones, and gradually become numb to what the instructor is trying to say. There is an array of active learning techniques that instructors can chose from to use in the classroom.
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How to create a PowerPoint presentation that won't put people to sleep!
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How to create a PowerPoint presentation that won't put people to sleep!