You've now designed and created the aids you plan to use for your presentation. It's time to discuss some guidelines for using his presentation aids most effectively. The first guideline is probably the most important: You need to practice with the actual aids that you're going to use. You have to get used to switching slides, figuring out what you're going to point to or show, and to determine if something is awkward. Check your aids in advance: Make sure you've got all of them and that they're in the right order. You might wan to make a checklist for what you need to bring if you're bringing actual objects to a presentation. When you show an aid, you need to explain clearly and concisely. The aid doesn't explain itself. It shouldn't look like you're using a background slide show during your speech. And you need to tell the audience what they should be paying attention to on a particular aid. Managing the information flow means timing when you want us to actually see your aids. You only want to show us the aid when it's time for us to see it. And cover it up or put it away, or put in a blank screen when you're done If you're using computer projections like Power Point, consider using animation so that we don't see everything at once. If you're using illustrator board, you may have to use a blank board that you can put between your aids, so if you finished talking about one aid and aren't ready to show the next aid, you would have something in between that we wouldn't pay attention to-- a blank board. You can do the same thing in a computer projection program: insert a black slide when there's nothing for us to see. You already know that I don't recommend handouts because you lose control of the audience's attention--that they're looking at one thing while you're talking about something else. A key point is that you need to address the audience and not the aid. You're trying to communicate with us not your presentation. Your presentation aid won't learn anything. If you're using computer projection or overheads, look at us while explaining the aid. Don't turn your back on the audience. This will take practice; refer back to guideline #1. You may have heard the syndrome called, "Death by PowerPoint." PowerPoint, and other computer projection programs, are tools used very frequently in the business world. Like any tool, it can be used effectively or ineffectively. Just because you can use it, doesn't mean that you can use it effectively. Vince Cirf, an internet pioneer, warned that, “Power corrupts and PowerPoint corrupts absolutely." Peter Norvig, of Google, acknowledges that PowerPoint is not the villain when he said, "My belief is that PowerPoint doesn't kill meetings. People kill meetings." He went on to say that, "Using PowerPoint is like having a loaded AK-47 on the table: You can do very bad things with it." Many students want to use PowerPoint in their classroom speeches but they may not be effective at it. If you get nothing out of this lecturette today, please remember this piece of advice: Do not read directly from your slides. The surest way to put it audience to sleep is to read directly from your Power Point slides. If you adhere to the design criteria we've already discussed, you won't be putting all of your words up on the slide anyway, so this ought to help. If you remember that, like all presentation aids, PowerPoint and the like are meant to AID the presentation and not BE the presentation, you'll likely end up making the right decision. Here are some suggestions to allow you to be more effective using projections--both computer projections and overhead projections. The don'ts first: Don't leave a blank screen. On an overhead, you may want to turn the projector off if you don't have anything for us to see. In PowerPoint, make a completely black slide. Don't block the projection with your body. This happens most frequently with overhead projection, particularly when you are pointing to something on the projection plate, but it also happens with computer projections such as PowerPoint. Novice presenters have difficulty figuring out what to put on the screen and many of them use running outline where all they do is list the main points. I even seen them make overhead transparencies the outline they turn into me and then just use a piece a paper to block the lower parts on the screen. A running outline doesn't aid the presentation. If you're using computer projection, please get to familiar with the mouse or the remote. Know which button to push to move back a slide or advance to the next slide. In some situations, your audience will ask questions that require you to move back to a previous slide or advance to a future slide. You will want to be able to do this smoothly. Know what's coming up in your presentation, what the animations are and, if you're using them, how the hyperlinks included work. It shouldn't look like this is the first time you've seen your aids It's easy to forget that you put in a hyperlink to jump to a different slide, and if you're linking to the Internet, please make sure you are connected before you start your presentation. This next suggestion won't work for students in my public speaking classes because I limit your notes to 3"x5" note cards. But you should know that you can add notes into Power Point and then print them out for yourself. If you can figure out how to do it, you can also run PowerPoint in presentation mode which will show your notes on your own personal computer screen, but on the screen that the audience sees, will show just the slide. If you're using overhead projection, make sure that you have the correct transparency film for your printer. there's one type that is made for laser printers and a different type for inkjet printers. Practice changing your slides smoothly. You need to know how they go on to the projector and be able to take one off and put one on without leaving a blank screen or looking awkward. And then be prepared for Mr. Murphy and have a backup plan because technology has an inherent tendency to break down. I suggest that, if you're using PowerPoint or Keynote projection, you should have overhead transparencies as your backup plan. And if you're planning on using transparencies, have a piece of white paper that you can put behind the transparency it you have to hold it up for your audience to see. Quiz Time: How important is it for you to practice with your presentation aids? And what is the one thing that you can do with presentation aids that will guarantee putting an audience to sleep? Keep in mind: Every aid should support the message and make it more memorable.