I recently was introduced to some information by Dr. Lynell Burmark of California, who has released a book about presentations and what NOT to do. Dr. Burmark's background spans kindergarten through graduate school and the book, They Snooze, You Lose, won a book of the year award. The first chapter of the book was available as a free download, so I took advantage of it. She basically says we've been using presentation software since 1989 but wants to know how anything has changed since then. Dr. Burmark is not against slideshows but she wants to warn us against constraints for us as presenters, or teachers.
First she suggests we get away from the usual default templates. We also need to be aware of background colors and images as they may detract from the important content we are trying to get across. Dr. Burmark reminds us as English language users, we read from left to right and so, our presentations should follow the same patterns. Another important point is the use of color. Did you know color visuals increase willingness to read by up to 80%? Or that color enhances learning and improves retention by more than 75%?
The eye has an order in which it sees colors. Yellow or other colors where yellowish hues dominate (like lime green), are seen before other colors. In general, warm colors like yellow or red are seen before cool colors like blue or green. The best color combination for a presentation is a blue background with yellow text. Who knew? Another point about color - for men, about 8% have some type of color deficiency, with the most common problem being an inability to distinguish red from green. If you have red words on a green background, some of your audience may perceive that as a blank slide!
Type, or font, is also important. It is easier and faster to read lower case letters, so don't put everything in capital, or uppercase, letters. If you are presenting to a large group or in a large room, consider whether your font and font size is big enough and clear enough to read from the back of the room. A good idea Dr. Burmark shared from another author is to prepare your presentation then approximate what your audience will see by looking at the slides in the slide sorter view at 66%. One rule of thumb is not to have more than two typefaces on one slide and to be especially careful with the number of words on each slide. Can you limit yourself to only one or two words per slide to guide your audience instead of the average 40 words per slide?
Most of us feel comfortable with presentations in today's society, especially in education. It probably is a good idea to visit the basics every now and then and go back and tweak our previous presentations so they are the best they can possibly be for our audience.
