Unleashing the Power of PowerPoint

PowerPoint as a tool will not, in and of itself, improve student learning. It’s the way that instructors use PowerPoint that can encourage student learning by strategically employing it to engage students in the learning process, incorporating classroom assessment techniques and using methods geared toward reaching multiple learning styles.

Note: These handouts are equally well suited for Mac Keynote users. The handouts specify PowerPoint, but really one can substitute much of the information presented in the documents with Keynote. If you have specific application tech support questions (for either PowerPoint or Keynote) please contact CMET Consulting: http://libweb.uoregon.edu/cmet/consulting/.

• PowerPoint Tips Design Keys for Classroom Presentations ( PDF 833K)
  This handout focuses on hot tips for creating effective classroom presentations with key focuses on inclusiveness, typography and design.


• Best Practices in Presenting with PowerPoint ( PDF 80K)
  PowerPoint is an easy-to-use presentation tool – but, like with any tool, its use is only as effective as the presenter who is using it. In putting together your slideshow, you’ve obviously considered all the key elements for a presentation. This handout talks about what to do once you’ve finished putting your presentation slides together, you’ve got your computer plugged into the projector, and all eyes are on you in the classroom.


• Adding Animation to Your PowerPoint Presentation ( PDF 241K)
  With PowerPoint you can animate text, graphics, diagrams, charts, and other objects on your slides so that you can focus on important points, control the flow of information, and add interest to your presentation. Proceed with Caution! Just because you can doesn’t mean you should…at least not all the time. Adding animation to your presentation can have a great impact if used effectively. Overuse can be distracting over the course of a lecture.


• Adding Interaction to Your PowerPoint Presentation ( PDF 55K)
  You can add a link to your presentation and then use it to go to a variety of locations — for example, a custom show (a presentation within your presentation), a specific slide within your presentation, a different presentation altogether, a Microsoft Word document or Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, or an Internet or email address. You can create a hyperlink from any object — including text, shapes, tables, graphs, and pictures.


• Incorporating Multimedia into Your Teaching ( PDF 219K)
  One of the most important uses of technology is that it makes it easy for instructors to incorporate multimedia into their teaching. While we use all of our senses to take in information, we each seem to have preferences in how we learn best. In order to help all students learn, we need to teach to as many of these preferences as possible.


• Understanding Digital Images ( PDF 810K)
  Pedagogically speaking there are many reasons you might consider adding digital images to your course content. To do it most effectively, you need to know a little something about accessibility, inclusive classroom considerations, copyright and fair use, file size, and format options.