By Ryan Schuller/reporter
With many teachers requiring visual aids for oral presentations, a NW Campus librarian showed students how to create aids to help rather than harm their grades.
Danelle Ellis, a member of the TCC Speakers Bureau, presented Put on a Good Show—Only You Can Prevent Bad PowerPoint, Sept. 11 and 12 as part of Student Success Days, a collection of workshops designed to help students succeed in their college careers.
While slides can add color to any student’s presentation, the audience should never “be so distracted by the PowerPoint, they forget you’re there,” she said.
Ellis, a public service librarian, said many speakers make mistakes when constructing and delivering a PowerPoint presentation. She said she once saw someone read the text from the projector as the words appeared on the screen one at a time.
PowerPoint slides can distract an audience rather than help make the speaker’s message clearer, Ellis said. Using slides as examples, she showed how animations, like a beach scene with waves and a man with sunglasses, and sounds, like applause and drum rolls, take the focus away from the speaker.
“ You are the presentation, not the PowerPoint,” she said. “It is just there to assist you, to make your points more clear or more interesting.”
Ellis said creating a quality PowerPoint presentation can affect a student’s grade positively.
“ When PowerPoint first came out, teachers were like, ‘Oh, they’re doing PowerPoint. Isn’t this wonderful.’
Anything you did was just great,” she said.
Teachers standards have changed, Ellis said. Now teachers expect students who use PowerPoint to do a good job.
“ Don’t just have bells and whistles,” she said.
Students wanting more information on working with PowerPoint should visit the library on their campus.
