Introduction

This course is designed to offer you a practical, hands-on demonstration of how you can use Microsoft PowerPoint to improve the quality and effectiveness of your presentations. It helps you to see PowerPoint in a new light, moving beyond the concept that slides are a container for speaker’s notes and into a new vision of PowerPoint as a tool that can help you achieve your business goals with more interesting, engaging, and meaningful presentations.

Audience

This course is designed for individuals who rely on presentations to communicate to other people for a range of purposes, including informing, persuading and inspiring. This group must communicate by public speaking, including formal meetings, impromptu gatherings, teaching and public speaking to professional groups and other audiences. This course is ideal for those who use PowerPoint routinely for presentations, but are mainly familiar with the conventional bullet point approach and want to explore new applications of the software.

At Course Completion

After completing this course, students will be able to:

•	Identify common problems in presentations and identify the common goals of any effective presentation.
•	Summarize the main idea of each slide by using a complete sentence in the Title area.
•	Maximize the use of the Notes Page feature in PowerPoint.
•	Make use of the entire slide area to present graphics and photographs.
•	Apply powerful techniques within PowerPoint that can have a big impact on the effectiveness of the presentation.

Prerequisites

Before attending this course, students must have:

•	The functional need to make presentations to audiences of different types, for a range of business reasons.
•	Familiarity with the fundamental components of a presentation, including a structure that includes a beginning, middle, and end; the need to be confident; and the desire to engage an audience rather than simply talking at them.
•	Hands-on experience with PowerPoint, including the ability to:
•	Write and edit text in the title area of slides.
•	Insert, resize, reposition, and manipulate graphics on a slide.
•	Work in PowerPoint’s various design views, including Normal, Notes Page, and Slide Sorter.
•	Print documents using PowerPoint’s print feature.
•	Advance slides during a live presentation using the keyboard.

Course Outline

Module 1: Presenting Clearly and Confidently with PowerPoint

The module introduces new approaches that you can apply to create more effective PowerPoint presentations and it describes the basic criteria for defining the effectiveness of a presentation, from the perspectives of both presenters and audiences.

Topics and Activities

•	What Is an Effective Presentation?
•	Demonstration: Presenting with a Conventional Bullet Point Presentation
•	Discussion: Analyzing the Presentation Case Study
•	Expert Video: Presenting with Clarity and Confidence
•	Making Presentations More Effective

After completing this module, students will be able to:

•	Identify the business outcomes of effective presentations.
•	Recognize common problems that result from reading bullet points from PowerPoint slides.
•	Assess how desired business outcomes relate to common presentation problems.
•	Identify presentation techniques that can serve as alternatives to reading bullet points from slides.

Module 2: Maximizing the Use of the Notes Page View

This module shows you how to simplify the layout of a slide by shifting on-screen information into the Notes Area. This simple but powerful technique will help you expand the space available to present information.

Topics and Activities

•	The Importance of Moving Spoken Text Off the Screen
•	Maximizing the Use of the Notes Page View
•	Exercise 1: Making Use of the Notes Page View in a Student Example
•	Exercise 2: Presenting with a Slide Designed in Notes Page View

After completing this module, students will be able to:

•	Develop Microsoft Office PowerPoint presentations by using the Notes Page view.
•	Reduce cognitive overload by shifting narrated text into the Notes Area.
•	Balance projected images and spoken words by planning both together.
•	Set the stage for a visual approach by clearing the slide area of excessive text.

Module 3: Summarizing the Main Idea of a Slide

This module demonstrates how you can more clearly communicate your ideas by summarizing the main idea of a slide in a complete sentence. This technique helps the audience and the presenter keep track of the key point of the slide.

Topics and Activities

•	How a Summary Headline Assists Both Audience and Presenter
•	Demonstration: Summarizing the Main Idea of a Slide
•	Exercise 1: Summarizing the Main Idea of a Slide in a Student Example
•	Exercise 2: Presenting with a Summary Headline

After completing this module, students will be able to:

•	Identify how a summary headline helps the presenter remember the main idea at hand.
•	Describe how a summary headline helps the audience understand the main idea the presenter wants to communicate.
•	Summarize the main idea of a slide in a student example.
•	Demonstrate how a clear headline increases the confidence of a presenter by reducing the need to read all of the text from a list of bullet points.

Module 4: Using the Full Screen Area to Display Graphics

This module illustrates the power of using the full screen area to display graphics. Because many presenters shrink graphics down to sizes that lose their visual impact, this module helps you to maximize the impact of the visuals on your slides.

Topics and Activities

•	The Power of Showing Instead of Telling
•	Demonstration: Using the Entire Slide Area to Display a Graphic
•	Exercise 1: Displaying a Graphic in the Entire Slide Area in a Student Example
•	Exercise 2: Presenting with a Full-Screen Graphic

After completing this module, students will be able to:

•	Examine existing PowerPoint slides for visual elements that can be expanded.
•	Make visuals easier for the audience to see and understand by expanding them to fill the entire screen.
•	Present a PowerPoint slide using a graphic as a visual prompt rather than relying on text on the screen.

Module 5: Applying Five Overlooked Techniques to Your Presentations

This module highlights five overlooked techniques that can help you increase the effectiveness of your presentations. Although most presenters are familiar with the basic set of techniques, they may not be aware that their delivery can quickly improve by using this additional set of techniques.

Topics and Activities

•	How Five Overlooked Techniques Can Make a Big Difference
•	Demonstration 1: Applying Five Overlooked Techniques
•	Exercise: Applying the Five Techniques in a Student Example
•	Demonstration 2: Presenting with the New Trey Research Slides
•	Discussion: Putting It All Together

After completing this module, students will be able to:

•	Type a slide number on the keyboard to quickly navigate to a slide.
•	Black out the screen for increased emphasis during a presentation.
•	Create a slide with a large question mark and no other text to encourage conversation.
•	Use a screen capture to illustrate a point.
•	Show a picture over a plain white background to let the picture speak for itself.

About the Author

Cliff Atkinson is a communications consultant and author of Beyond Bullet Points: Using Microsoft PowerPoint to Create Presentations that Inform, Motivate, and Inspire (Microsoft Press, 2005).