by Sydney Brown, Kerri Hiatt, and Terry Workman,
UNL Extended Education and Outreach
Organize and Prepare. Before beginning narration, print out your slides and write a script or note cards for them. This will help you know which slide is coming up and be prepared for it. Speaking into a microphone can often be more difficult than giving the presentation to a live audience. Be organized and know what is coming up next.
Write in 'Point Form' and Not Complete Sentences. If you write too many words, the learners will spend too much time reading and not listening to the elaborative content you are providing with your narration. Visuals often provide more memorable representations of content when appropriate.
Start Strong. Your first slide should be your title slide, which you can use to introduce yourself and provide some preliminary information about the structure and scope of your presentation. Do not start by saying, "Um, well, I guess we should probably get started…". Instead, say "Hi! I'm Doctor Smith. This lecture will focus on…".
Let Your Personality Show. Narration done well, especially when it includes a picture of you, can help facilitate the teacher-student connection.
Don't Read—Talk! Your main goal should be to keep your listeners interested and focused. Nothing is more boring than listening to someone read to you what you can read for yourself. Pretend you are actually lecturing to a class. Place a photograph of your family or a small group or even a family pet near your computer and pretend you are talking to them.
Use Good Slide Design. Use standard fonts. Use different sized fonts for main points and secondary points. Limit the number of fonts, size of fonts and color of fonts to no more than three per presentation. Capitalize only when necessary. Proofread your slides. Limit the use of animation.
Engage the Learner. Ask questions and pause for the learner to think about the answer, give examples, or tell a relevant story. When you say something important, leave a gap afterward. Let it hang there for a few seconds. Here's an example: "You know what I think?" (Pause… two… three…) "I think the only way this is going to work is if we do it this way." (Pause… two… three…) "Here's why…".
Only Take One to Two Minutes Per Slide. The longer the presentation, the longer the download wait, and some students are still using dial-up connections. If you have more to say, break it up into more than one slide.
Eliminate Extraneous Noise. Turn off your telephone and cell phone, shut the door, move away from heating and air conditioning vents, etc.
Check Your Sound Quality. Record your introduction slide. Stop, and play that slide to check the sound quality, before continuing. It is best to use an external microphone or a headset to get clear, consistent sound. Keep the microphone a few inches from your mouth to avoid breathy noises.
Remember, You Can Stop your narration and return to it later. Don't think that you have to record the narration for an entire presentation at once; you can do it slide-by-slide, or come back and finish it all later.
Preview Your Presentation. Record your narration for the entire presentation as if you were presenting it. Then, run your presentation while you sit back and listen with a critical ear. You gain an entirely different perspective when you pretend to be a part of your own audience. Listening to your presentation enables you to pick up on awkward moments, unclear passages and boring spots much more easily. You cannot edit the narration in the middle, but you can choose to re-record narration for any given slide.
Provide Students a Printable Version. Using the Print Handouts option creates a .pdf handout students can download and print and upon which they can make notes while listening. You may even want to consider blanking out some information to encourage note taking.
Getting UNL Connect Presenter:
The UNLConnect license purchased by UNL allows free download, installation and use of the Adobe Connect Presenter.
- Register for an Account: Faculty account creation is handled by Lisa Bogus (472-9050, LBogus3@unl.edu). Lisa does not provide any training or support.
- Install the Connect Presenter software: Once you receive your account information, you need to download and install the Adobe Connect Presenter software. http://breeze.unl.edu/common/help/en/support/startmain.htm
Click on the Install Adobe Acrobat Connect Add-in for Windows or Macintosh Operating Systems. link for either Macintosh or Windows OS. You will be prompted for your username and password. Once you have entered that information, you can download the software. Connect Presenter is installed as a menu item in Microsoft Office's PowerPoint presentation software.
Other PowerPoint Resources
How to record narration
Using the PowerPoint Connect Presenter Plug-In: http://TinyURL.com/bn6cj
Directions for Recording Narration in PowerPoint: http://TinyURL.com/8oeh8
Directions for Converting an Existing Narrated PowerPoint to UNLConnect: http://TinyURL.com/b7vmx
Handout on Breeze account information, FlashPaper and CutePDF Writer: http://TinyURL.com/cj2w6
Interactive quizzes using PowerPoint
PowerPoint game instructions: http://www.coastal.edu/education/ti/interactiveppt.html
UNLConnect Presenter Quiz Instructions: http://TinyURL.com/81433
The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint by Edward R Tufte
"In corporate and government bureaucracies, the standard method for making a presentation is to talk about a list of points organized onto slides projected up on the wall. For many years, overhead projectors lit up transparencies and slide projectors showed high-resolution 35mm slides. Now "slideware" computer programs for presentations are nearly everywhere. Early in the 21st Century, several hundred million copies of Microsoft PowerPoint were turning out trillions of slides each year.
Alas, slideware often reduces the analytical quality of presentations. In particular, the popular PowerPoint templates (ready-made designs) usually weaken verbal and spatial reasoning, and almost always corrupt statistical analysis. What is the problem with PowerPoint? And how can we improve our presentations?" http://www.EdwardTufte.com/tufte/books_pp.
Creating Graphics for Learning and Performance: Lessons in Visual Literacy by Linda Lohr
Prentice-Hall ISBN# 0-13-090712-X
"It's all here! Everything teachers and instructional designers need to know to produce effective, efficient and appealing visuals for classrooms and training/performance settings—including web-based training and distance learning. This text explains the process of graphic design, exploring not only the rules that apply to designing graphics, but also the thinking, experimenting and evaluating that goes into good design. Blending information from such diverse sources as instructional design and architecture, graphic arts and ergonomics, the author provides a wealth of examples, exercises and hands-on activities that reinforce content. Underlying everything is information processing theory and an emphasis on the importance of designing visuals that not only appeal to the eyes, but also support cognitive processes by helping learners select the most important information, organize that information and integrate it into memory."
