My hobby is powerpoint presentations. Wierd hobby, but after one particularly bad presentation, I realized just how vital a presentation can be in getting the sale or, in my case, losing the sale. I made it my goal to find the magic bullet or formula to make a presentation good.
Originally, the message was the old no more than 6 bulletpoints and no more than 6 lines per slide. One idea per slide. Simplistic and wrong. Further study led to a number of methods and a number of philosophies on presentation. I have listed the best of the best. Consistently there are a few rules, that if followed, will lead to success. But they aren’t easy to follow. They aren’t easy to follow because of the way that we have have been taught to communicate.
Facts that you need to know:
From the study of multi media learning by Moreno & Mayer:
” Active learning occurs when a learner engages in the cognitive process of selecting relevant words and images, organizing words and images into coherent verbal and visual models, and integrating the corresponding components of the verbal and visual models. To foster the process of selecting, multimedia presentations should not contain too much extraneous information in the form of words or sounds. To foster the process of organizing, multimedia presentations should represent the steps in order and with clear signals for both the verbal and visual information. To foster the process of integrating, multimedia presentations should present words and pictures concurrently using modalities that effectively use available visual and auditory working memory resources. The major advance in our research program is to identify techniques for presentation of verbal and visual information that minimizes working memory load and promotes meaningful learning. The most direct practical implication is clear: When designing multimedia learning environments (especially if visual and verbal information are presented simultaneously), present words auditorily rather than visually and do not add extraneous sounds unless relevant to the lesson’s main message. A concise spoken multimedia explanation allows the learner to build a coherent mental representation–that is, to focus on the key elements and mentally organize them in a way that makes sense.”
We learn in two channels, visual and verbal, but too often powerpoint is presented in the verbal ( Text on a screen are processed as verbal). To find the magic bullet for powerpoint you must structure the presentation to maximize both the verbal and visual impact.