Tuesday, October 6, 2015

Week 5 - Effective Presentations

It drives me crazy for presenters to flood their presentations with poorly constructed slides.  Each slide should convey a point and be visibly appealing to hold the audiences attention.  Too many times the fonts are crazy and too small.  Never think that the sound options for PowerPoint are necessary for business presentations, or at least not on every click of your mouse. 

This session reinforced the simplicity of slide information and the need to make your slides relevant  and appealing.    Andy

8 comments:

  1. Yes, Andy... I agree!~ Simple construction with clear talking points and no clutter (sound or visual) are best! Audiences respond poorly when we give them chaotic media! Agreed!

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  2. Yes, Andy... I agree!~ Simple construction with clear talking points and no clutter (sound or visual) are best! Audiences respond poorly when we give them chaotic media! Agreed!

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  3. Yes, Andy... I agree! Simple construction with clear talking points and no clutter (sound or visual) are best! Audiences respond poorly when we give them chaotic media! I felt that this module helped support that!

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  4. Andy, hey. If the presenter has a point and the confidence to assert it, the sound and animations effects really are overkill in a presentation for adults. However, I will say that I use both sometimes (although not at the same time) in my 100 level classes in sociology. There are times when the audience doesn't care about the topic nearly so much as they do about the special effects aimed at keeping them awake. ;-)

    Thanks for your ideas, sir.
    Brenda

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  5. This is going to sound arrogant, and I don't mean for it to do so.....I was presenting at a conference once and did not use any audio visual aids. I spoke directly to the audience and made eye contact. There were about 50 people in attendance. A man came up to me afterwards and said, "Please promise me you will never use PowerPoint." I didn't understand what he meant at first. He said that it was so refreshing to hear someone speak without having to use PowerPoint and that he really appreciated my presentation. I think it's also really important to know when it's appropriate not to use technology.

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  6. I know I have heard the same thing many times about PP presentations - some people really hate them. However, it's a good way to draw in the visual learners vs just the aural learners. In my FSSE class, the students have to complete a tutorial in PowerPoint and then they have to apply it by giving several presentations including a final presentation - which is a summary of the class assignments. We also discuss the basics of giving a presentation with PP - keep it simple and use easy to read slides with minimal visuals. We also discuss how the slides should only be used as a prompt or outline for the presenter.

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  7. I think that simple can be VERY effective. Many of our students are trying to entertain and forget the purpose of their presentation. I believe that speech was one of the most useful classes I completed in college. Definitely one of the few skills that I still use today. I think this module was very effective in conveying the importance and simplicity that goes in to a presentation.

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  8. I agree Andy. Most presentations have too many slides and they try to convey too much information on one slide. I've found that the PP presentations provided by the text book publishers have to be simplified and many times I will delete half of them.

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