Power Points

If I hear that there will be a PowerPoint presentation in one of my classes i rarely look forward to it. This is because many people go about making a PowerPoint in several wrong ways. The Top Ten Slide Tips on Garrreynolds.com are very helpful in showing exactly what not to do when creating a presentation. I enjoyed reading through this site because it was very easy to see what the author was talking about because it showed actual pictures of correct and incorrect slides.
The Recommendations for Faculty on PowerPoint page was a little less interesting. The page included great information like, not including bullet points and putting that information in the notes to be read orally, but it was less enjoyable to read about. The funny thing about the page is that it does many things that it says should not be done in a PowerPoint. I realize that it was probably all presented orally, but if it wasn't it is a great example of how not to organize a PowerPoint.
The digital booklet Really Bad PowerPoint was also very helpful and included some good information. One of my favorite points that Seth Godin makes about the things people do wrong when making a PowerPoint is that people forget that the presentation is meant to be a way to communicate with the audience. He says that slides are often used a teleprompters and I can't agree more. There is nothing worse than sitting through a PowerPoint being read to you.
After reading all of these helpful pages there are at least five things that I hope everyone remembers in preparing his or her PowerPoint:

1. Do NOT read straight from the slides
2. Limit what you put onto one slide, don't over crowd the slide with information
3. Choose color of background and letters and font well
4. Use professional looking images rather than low-grade clip art
5. If including a chart, keep it simple and don't include too many words