Slides rule

26th April 2002, 1:00am

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Slides rule

https://www.tes.com/magazine/archive/slides-rule
Like most computer applications, PowerPoint is only as good as those who use it. Many of us have suffered at the hands of terminally dull speakers who try to pep up their performance with all that the slide presentation program allows. Assorted bangs, thumps and screeches, text that flies, scrapes or slides, psychedelic colour schemes and strange graphics. “Death by PowerPoint” some call it and no wonder.

Used more discriminately, PowerPoint can perk up a lesson with enough sound, colour and movement to prod the dopiest pupil into alertness. More than that, it is becoming an important part of the curriculum for pupils, who can add the same qualities to their own presentations. It can also be used to make web pages, handouts and outlines. The result is that some teachers swear by it. On the other hand, some teachers swear at it. “Too complicated!” they complain. “Too time-consuming and (thinking of those inept speakers) too damn gimmicky.”

Wrong on all three counts. Given a good guide and a fair amount of practice, PowerPoint is as easy to learn as it is to use. As for the gimmicks, the sane guide will advise that the fancy stuff be used sparingly. The problem, of course, is picking out that particular guide from the dozens on sale.

At the cheaper end of the market, Straight to the Point: PowerPoint 2000 (ENI Publishing, pound;4.99) covers the basics and some more complex tasks straightforwardly enough, but the book is spoiled by its cramped layout as well as sometimes minuscule text often blurred by a grey background. Definitely better in terms of layout and clarity is the same publisher’s On Your Side: PowerPoint 2000 (pound;9.99), but there are puzzling omissions - nothing, for instance, in the special effects chapter on how to delete an element from an animation order.

Given that one of the main attractions of PowerPoint is its potential for using colour creatively, these books gain nothing from being printed in black and white. The same is true of PowerPoint 2000 for Windows for Dummies (IDG Books, pound;18.99), a guide that combines dull graphics with forlorn wisecracks and some wildly unsound advice, such as: “A good presentation should be like a fireworks show: At every new slide, the audience gasps oooh and aaah.” “Eugh. Yuk,” more like. Somewhat more restrained is The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2000 (QUE, pound;15.99), but it also suffers from uninspired graphics and over-wordiness. In mitigation, the chapter on presentation style is excellent in spite of its title: “Making your presentation a Doozy!” No such horrors await in Rebecca Altman’s Microsoft PowerPoint 20012002 for Windows and Macintosh (Peachpit Press, pound;14.99) which, while altogether colourless, is still crisp, comprehensive and precise.

Similarly pallid but equally thorough is Microsoft PowerPoint 2000 at a Glance (Microsoft Press, pound;15.99), a guide that sensibly limits itself to careful, point-by-point advice. All the same, what the book gains in detail, it loses in design. By contrast, two cheapies from Dorling Kindersley, the basic Creating Presentations and the more ambitious Advanced Presentations (both pound;4.99), fully illustrate what can be achieved when colour and layout are used with taste and imagination. Though nowhere near inclusive (with no mention in the second guide of, say, inserting movie files and other tricky operations) these pocket-sized volumes give a far better idea of the visual benefits of using PowerPoint than any of the others covered so far.

Even better are those guides that come with a tutorial CD-Rom. Indeed, anyone who wants to see precisely what can be achieved with PowerPoint should, before anything else, turn to the later CD-Rom practice files. There they can appreciate and, if they want, play around with a presentation slide before turning to the start of the book to see exactly how it was put together.

The practice files that accompany The MOUS PowerPoint 2000 Exam Preparation Guide (ENI Publishing, pound;12.99) offer no shortage of features to play around with: slides that chime as they change, titles that arrive accompanied by the sound of a shotgun and sub-titles that spiral in. All in all, awful but instructive. Equally useful are the text and illustrations, although probably more so for those studying for the Microsoft Office User Specialist examination than less single-minded users, some of whom might be intimidated by guidance that makes few concessions to a more relaxed approach.

At around twice the price, one is entitled to expect something special from Microsoft PowerPoint Version 2002 Step by Step (Microsoft Press, pound;22.99). From first to last, the book delivers. It too is written with the MOUS qualification partially in mind, but its tone, presentation and organisation are superior, as is a companion CD-Rom with 90 practice files. A quick reference guide and extensive glossary are bonuses. Visually pleasing, precise and bang up-to-date - just the thing to help stage your very own son-et-lumi re.

Laurence Alster

Useful though they are, books and CD-Roms aren’t the only places to go to for advice on PowerPoint. The web offers many sites, several of which explain the basics of the program as helpfully as even the best books.

Some beginners will like the advice given by Sue Special and Jim Jingle on PowerPoint in the Classroom (www.actden.com pp), while others will be too irritated by the hosts’ chat to benefit from sensible guidance supported by excellent graphics. Far more businesslike without ever being off-putting are PowerPoint 97 Tutorial (www.eiu.edumediasrv ppoint97PowerPoint.html) and PowerPoint 2000 Tutorial (www.fgcu.edusupportoffice2000ppt index.html). Both offer clear instructions with large and well-labelled illustrations.

Science teachers in particular will be intrigued by Tony Thould’s slide show at Getting the Point (www.tpthould.dabsl.co.uk), even if the thrust of the site is as much commercial as instructional.

Those with PowerPoint 2002, the latest version, will find much of interest at the Microsoft Office PowerPoint Assistant Center (www.search.office.microsoft.com assistanceproducttask.aspx), while unusual questions about PowerPoint are dealt with unfussily and effectively at PowerPoint FAQ (www.bitbetter.com).

Finally, the same site combines tips on presentations with examples of how an effective slide should look. PowerPoint Basics (www.orst.eduinstruction) does the same. “Don’t dazzle with graphics, but with information,” it preaches. And so say all (well most) of us.

Laurence Alster

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