PowerPoint Tips
PowerPoint is a
program that will allow you to expand your creativity and student achievement.
Since teachers in this class are likely to be at all levels of expertise in
their use of P.P., a relatively short introduction on how to get started will
be included.
Getting Started:
Left click on Start and then go to
programs. Left click on Microsoft PowerPoint. If you’re starting a new
presentation, you’ll most likely want to click on “Blank Presentation”.
Blank Presentations will allow you to make all the design decisions.
AutoContent Wizard is quick, but limits
you in the choices of templates.
Templates will take you right to a
number of designs that have already been created.
Slide Layout:
Click on Format and then click on Slide
Layout. Select a layout that will allow you to insert the text you wish and
include any pictures or graphs you might want in each slide. You can use a
different layout for each slide of your presentation if you choose.
Slide Design:
Choose Design Template. Click on Design on the toolbar or go
to Format and go down to Slide Design. Click on each design and
double-click the design you like. Tip: You may change the background design at any
time, but you usually only have one design template in
any PowerPoint presentation. There is a way to get around this by changing the color
schemes or only applying a design to the one slide by clicking on Apply
to Selected Slides.
To play with the color schemes, go to Format,
Slide Design,
Color
Schemes,
or Format, dropdown to Background, and pick your color! This is a
fun area to experiment!
Font:
It’s at this point you may wish to adjust the
font for your presentation. This can be done by changing the “master slide”
which has its own predetermined font.
Click View,
Master, and then Slide Master. Highlight the text, click Format,
and click Font. Tip:
Select your slide design before you use the slide master; if you don’t, all
your selections will be in vain.
You can also adjust the font color by
clicking on the large “A” on your toolbar that has the paint mark underneath. Tip: Make sure your students will be able to see the colorful font
and backgrounds you’ve selected.
WordArt:
This is a good way to add creative text.
Choose the Insert menu, select Picture, and click WordArt.
Double click the WordArt of your choice. Type something and click the OK
button, click and drag the WordArt to your desired location and adjust the
size.
New Slide:
Once you have entered text on your slide, you
can add a new slide by clicking on New Slide on the standard tool bar.
This same process can be followed for all of your slides.
Slide Animation:
Pick the slide you’d like to animate, click Side
Show on the menubar and click on Animation Schemes. Experiment with
the different choices.
Slide Transition and
Sound:
Click on Slide Show, drop down to Slide
Transition. Try different types of transitions, change the speed, and add
sound to the transition if you wish. Tip:
If you add sound to the
transition, you may want to go to the slow speed to have more of an effect. Also
if you click on the Slide Sorter View button on the bottom left of
your screen (it looks like four squares), you can do the slides you wish to add
the effect to just by clicking on them.
Slide Sorting:
Since we just mentioned the Slide Sorter View
button, it would be a good time to mention how to sort and delete slides while
getting a picture of your entire presentation. Click on the button on the
bottom left of your screen (the one that looks like four squares). This is the Slide
Sorter View button. Click on the slide you wish to move. Holding the click
down, move the mouse to the area between the slides where you wish the transferred
slide to go.
You can also delete the slide you have
clicked; just hit the delete key.
Tip: You can also import slides from previous
presentations that you’ve already made. This can save you a great deal of time.
Just pull up the PowerPoint program that has the slide you want, click on the Slide
Sorter View, click on the slide you want, right click and hit copy. Close
the presentation and open the one you’re working on. If you go to the Slide
Sorter View of your new presentation, you can click between the two slides
where you wish to put the new slide, right click, hit paste, and wa-la!
Clip Art, Pictures and
Beyond!
While looking at the
choices for Slide Layout, you’ll notice that many allow you to add
charts or pictures. Choose a slide that will allow you to play with the
different choices.
Clip
Art: If you click on Clip Art, you can search for art that fits your
presentation. You can search for a subject, Ex. TREES and hit search.
Click on an image you like, click OK. Now you can change the size and
shape of the art using the white circles that border it. The green circle
allows you to rotate the art.
You might also want to consider buying a
commercial clip art set like ClickArt 200,000 which gives you endless art from
which to choose. Also there is a great deal of clip art on line that you can
download and use for your presentations. Try one of these sites!
http://64.38.119.228/index.htm
http://arthur.k12.il.us/arthurgs/aesbggr.htm
http://school.discovery.com/clipart/
http://www.techtreckers.com/virtuallibrary/clipart.htm
Pictures:
Pictures are great to include in your PowerPoint presentations to show
students things that fit in your lesson and may not be well represented in
their text. Examples might include plankton types, cloud formations, or the effects
of hurricanes. One great why to do this is to build a collection of pictures
from the internet before you start making your presentation. These can be saved
in a picture file on your computer and then deleted once you’re finished with
the presentation. Watch copyright rules!
Let’s say you wanted to do a presentation on
plankton. You could get on Netscape, go to Bookmark, Search and Directory, and
then select a search engine. I always like to start with Google. You could then
type in plankton+copepod and hit search. One of the results you would
get is
http://life.bio.sunysb.edu/marinebio/plankton.html
This is a great site with lots of pictures of
plankton. To put the pictures in your file, right click on the picture, left
click on Save Image As, give the
picture a name, put in the correct file, and click on Save. By checking out the different sites, you can accumulate a
nice group of pictures to use.
Charts
and Graphs: You can also add charts and graphs to your presentations. Using
a slide that allows you to select charts and pictures, click on the graph. When you click on the graph, an
example spreadsheet shows up along with the example graph. Spend some time
playing in this section, and you might use graphs on your presentations. You
can delete the information on the spreadsheet and insert your own to see how
the graph changes. After a little practice, you’ll be able to graph with the
experts.
There
are two ways to insert tables in your PowerPoint presentation. If you want to
have a table that is no more than 5 columns by 4 rows, you can click on the
table on your tool bar. Otherwise, select a slide that allows you to add
pictures and tables; then click on the table. Select the number of columns and
rows; click OK. You can
adjust the spacing between the columns or rows by holding your click and moving
the lines as needed.
Hyperlinks:
You can link to a website, another
PowerPoint slide in your presentation, or even some document in your files. Tip: Make sure that the document you link to is in the computer
you’ll be using for your presentation.
Links to a Web Page: Highlight the text
or object you would like to Hyperlink. Click Insert and then Hyperlink.
In the link to the file or URL, type the URL of the Web page, click on the OK
button. Once you are in the slide show, the Hyperlink will be activated.
Links to Another
Slide: To
link to another slide in your presentation, you’ll need to highlight an area on
the slide you’ll be leaving. (I like to use a Symbol out of Insert)
Once you’ve highlighted the text or symbol, click on Slide Show, then Action
Settings. Click Hyperlink to, click the down arrow
to the right and scroll down the choices. If,
for instance, you wanted to link to slides 47-50, you would go to Slide
on the choices, scroll down to 47 and click OK. Tip: If you want
to return to your regular presentation after slide 50, you’ll need to include a
return Hyperlink on slide 50. This is the basic process that’s used in making a
Jeopardy Game!
Links to Other Files: Say you wanted to link to
some Word document you have on file during your presentation, you can do so by
following the same basic procedure as we did in the last section. Go to Slide
Show, Action Settings, Hyperlink to, scroll all the way down
to Other File and pick out the document you want to link to. When you
close this document during the presentation, you should return back to the
slide that had the hyperlink!
Running your Slide Show:
Slide shows can be presented in a number of
different ways. You can load the program and have the students work
independently on computers. This is great for makeup work! You can hook your
computer to a LCD Projector for large group presentations or to the TV in your
classroom. Tip: If you use your presentations on the TV,
try to keep your font size in the 40+ range so all the students can see it.
Most teachers like to advance their slides using
the mouse click; this is great for a lesson because it gives you a great deal
of flexibility. If you want to have the slides change automatically, go to Slide
Show, drop down to Slide Transition, check Automatically After--,
and set the time. Click on Apply to All Slides if you want the same
speed for all slides. Usually, 10 to 15 seconds a slide is a good starting
point if the slides have some text.
The keys on computer can be used to help you
move around the presentation.
Pressing: (Right), (Down), (Enter), or the
(Space Bar) will display the next slide
Pressing: (Left) or (Up) will display the
previous slide
Pressing: (Home) will display the first
slide
Pressing: (End) will display the last slide
If
you need to return to a particular slide during the presentation, you can right
click on the screen, drop down to Go, go to Slide Navigator and
select the slide you wish to return too.
Saving Your Presentation:
(We’ll
cover the options in class once we see what type of equipment everyone has at
their school)
Printing:
There are some different ways to print from
PowerPoint, and it varies depending on what edition of PowerPoint you’re using.
You can just hit Print, and you’ll get a hard copy of your presentation
with one slide per page.
On the PowerPoint 2000, you can go to Print
Preview ( blank page and magnifying glass on the Tool bar), Print What,
and select the number of slides you want printed per page.
You can also go to View, Master,
and then select Handout Master or Notes Master depending on your
needs.