EFFECTiVe Power Point Presentation..

25th JULY, 2007 (3rd class)

After a lesson of trials and putting on our skills of preparing our own powerpoint slide presentations on the topic given, we were now given the much interesting input on the effective ways of enhancing our slides as to engage the target audience in a more interactive, persuasive & effective manner. I believe Prof Maznah must have felt that we have still a long way to go in equipping ourselves with the skills of making EFFECTIVE power point slides that serve its purpose in converying the message across by first CAPTURING the attention of the audience. This interesting session was conducted by Ms Ng, our very sweet but stern facilitator.

Prof Maznah first introduced Ms Ng to us as this is our first encounter with her as our facilitator. My first thought of today's lesson would be the typical type of talk presented with the objective to help us learn to produce a better powerpoint slide presentation. However, I was totally immersed and engaged by the many interesting tips on presentation slides which dawned upon me the moment Ms Ng begins to impart her valuable and essential knowledge on this area. I must say that she is a real expert. Well, she has captured my attention with her well- explained points on making our power presentation as simple as possible with the intention of getting the ideas across and not 'turning off' the audience who are listening. Ms Ng is truly an effective presenter with excellent classroom mangaement skill. Throughout the lesson, she manged to keep the class attentive, and participative while at the same time getting her lesson across.

To start the ball rolling, Ms Ng has shown us a comparison of a few slides which contain good features such as clear and distictive highlighted points, visibility of fonts as well as the negative features of the slides such as blurred or hidden images due to the wrong choice of colour background, or too wordy slides.
Among the important points to pay attention to in the preparation of powerpoint slides emphasized by Ms Ng are:

• SimpLicity- keep the phrase short and simple.
• VisibiLity- ensure the font size is large enough to be read by the audience
  - colour chosen for the background is does not 'hide' the words printed.
• Catchy Phrase- get the message accross!
• Focus- 'YOU'- Presenter is the main focus to convey the message across.
• GraPhics- Relevant pictures to the point mentioned
• Pictures in Grey Scales- the Focus is NOT Switched to the pictures.
• Have 'TITLE' for every slide - keep the audience focused and aware of the topic presented.
• No Plagiarism!- include the references for images taken from the Internet.

To be honest, I have always been reminded of some of these points mentioned above such as font size, visibility, and suitability of colour chosen for the background of the slides. However, there are of course some other points which I have never thought of or been warned of. I must say that I never thought that including pictures or images from the Internet in our slides to elaborate our points without stating the references is a Crime- PLAGIARISM. Hence, after today's class, I believe that we are now more aware of the 'dos and dont's' of power point slides and would be more careful in preparing power point slides in the future.

Before Ms Ng assigned us our next task, she has also shared with us several interesting samples of powerpoint slide presentation done by International organisations which contains the positive features of powerpoint such as keeping our slides short and simple to ensure its effectiveness.

While I was attentively listening to the points she raised, it makes me wonder the 'effectiveness' of powerpoint slides that we have often been exposed to which are normally lengthy in form. She has clarified the idea that powerpoint slides are meant to be brief enough with the keywords focused as the presence of the presenter is to further explain and elaborate on the points put forward on the slides. If our audience requested for a copy of notes on the topic we presented, this is when our preparation notes for the topic comes in handy as we could then give them a copy of our notes instead of the powerpoint slides which only serve the purpose of presentations with the presence of the presenter.

Indeed, I have truly understood and had a full grasp of the ideas and tips she has delivered to us. By the end of the lesson, Im sure we have all turned into a much better equiped learner in preparing powerpoint slides for presentation purposes. We were then required to work on our powerpoint slides which we had prepared and presented last week on the "HOTMAIL" before uploading it on the MOODLE. By applying the useful information gathered and learnt from this lesson, we modified and improved on our slides to make it more eye-catching and attractive. We try to abide to the rule given by Ms Ng which is to include only a single point on a slide so that audience would not be swayed to read on the other points when the presenter is explaining on a particular point. Please refer to my post on 'HOTMAIL' Power point Slides (AFTER) to view my group's powerpoint after the makeover from the points we learnt in today's lesson.

While we were thinking of ways and means to improve on our slides, Ms Chin introduced us to the link http://www.seedwiki.com/wiki/pkey3101/blogspot?wpid:571027
where we can browse though our seniors' blogs on this course. Interestingly, there are good blogs which I personally feel that it is a good opportunity for us to learn from as well as some blogs which could be improved on. I truly count myself blessed to be presented with samples of our seniors' blogs which we can lean on as examples. The class ended with each group browsing through the net looking for insights from our seniors' blogs as well as improving our slides on the powerpoint presentations last week.