Good PowerPoints

Probably most of us have bashed PowerPoint at one time or another and made snide comments about the appalling ordeals we've been made to endure in the name of multimedia presentations.
At the same time, I for one still have the daunting challenge of having to make PowerPoint presentations from time to time and want to create them to be as interesting and effective as possible.
So it came as something of a pleasant surprise when I encountered the World's Best Presentation Awards on the SlideShare site this evening.
http://www.slideshare.net/contests/contest-details
There are 10 winners featured and I particularly like 4 of them: Meet Henry, Sustainable Food Lab, Translation as Vocation, and I Am the Media. I wish to add that I don't necessarily like or endorse the message (read content) of all the winners, rather I'm focused on the manner of presentation.
I'm thinking that showing some of these and/or discussing them in appropriate contexts to appropriate people might help raise the general quality level of PPs a little.
Personal comment: I disagree pretty emphatically with the choice of ShiftHappens. Of course, the content of this presentation is exemplary and it makes extremely powerful and meaningful points. I suspect that's why it was selected. However, if you have seen the original (can be found at http://thefischbowl.blogspot.com), I wonder if you agree with my preference for it, rather than this pimped up version on steroids
Just some thoughts.
Jim Lerman

Tags: presentation

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Permalink Reply by William Peterson on September 28, 2007 at 9:23pm

It's welcomed to read and review my article of Do better than Google Presentation by yourself? Of course you can! at
http://howto.wired.com/wiredhowtos/index.cgi?do_better_than_google_...

:-)

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Permalink Reply by Marielle Lange on October 17, 2007 at 5:06am

If I follow this link (do better than google"), I get nothing but "Replace this text with your own." There is no content (no article). Is this work in progress?

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Permalink Reply by J on January 29, 2008 at 9:39am

Great website for outstanding powerpoints!
I teach the following guidelines to 7th graders (and others) for making basic powerpoints: http://www.180techtips.com/16.htm

I find that most students think "presentation" and "PowerPoint" are the same thing at this point. They rarely consider that THEY are the presentations and need to be reminded to do more than just read their slides to the already literate audience. To help with this I have all students work in groups of 4 to make slide shows about the same topic (the histpry of computer). They then present their shows to their peers who are evaluating their performance and accuracy using online surveys: http://freeonlinesurveys.com/rendersurvey.asp?sid=u6nulw34aagixg338...

I'd love to be able to get my students to the point of making presentations of high quality but for now it's enough to upgrade the skills of 7th graders past reading their slides and making basic design mistakes.

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Permalink Reply by Doris O on April 10, 2008 at 2:20pm

While I applaud your efforts to help 7th graders and others make better Powerpoint slides, I suggest you also read Edward Tufte's essay "The Cognitive Style of Powerpoint". I should also mention that the http://www.180techtips.com/16.htm website has a link to Peter Norvig's Powerpoint version of The Gettysburg Address as a resource for social studies teachers. Norvig intended that piece to illustrate just how bad Powerpoint is for making good presentations! See: http://www.norvig.com/Gettysburg/making.html and http://www.norvig.com/lancet.html

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Permalink Reply by J on May 8, 2009 at 7:55pm

Ah yes, The Gettysburg Address slide show. As a former social studies teacher myself I actually added that link as a joke (http://www.norvig.com/Gettysburg/index.htm). I have since updated the site to include a blog which has inspired me to rethink all my presentations: Presentation Zen, by Garr Reynolds. Please give it a look. I started with this entry comparing the presentation styles of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates.

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Permalink Reply by Sue Pojer on January 29, 2008 at 5:17pm

I've created over 140 Powerpoints for U. S., European, and Global history. They can be found on my alternate site at www.pptpalooza.net. My main site is www.historyteacher.net

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Permalink Reply by david Davenport on April 10, 2008 at 12:34pm

I actually found the "shift happens" slide to be very interesting. It shows the power of words used with visual aids. It got me thinking about the issues discussed. I see extreme value in visual aid

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Permalink Reply by Dena Coots on April 10, 2008 at 12:53pm

Tom Kuhlmann has some very interesting and practical uses for Power Point that I have fond very useful. You can see this on his blog, The Rapid E=Learning Pro, at
http://www.articulate.com/rapid-elearning/what-everybody-ought-to-k...
I especially like his use of Power Point for branched scenarios

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Permalink Reply by Dwight Goodwin on May 8, 2009 at 10:28pm

I like to use PowerPoint as a base then give it a more multimedia feel by putting it in Photostory. Photostory creates a .wmv file which i can convert and put the presentation on an iPod or other portable device.

http://classroomnext.blogspot.com/2009/03/powerpoint-to-ipod-compat...

dg

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Permalink Reply by Robert on December 30, 2010 at 7:45am

Make your PowerPoint interactive! Check www.shakespeak.com.

It takes a free [<20 people] download and you can add open or closed questions. During the actual presentation you ask your students to react by mobile phone using TXT, [mobile] Internet or Twitter. Reactions come in real time [but can be filtered] and are immediately shown on the screen.