Suggestions for Teaching PowerPoint Class

[ppt diva]

Hi,
I've been asked to teach PowerPoint classes for my colleagues at work, and
need suggestions on what to teach and how to structure it. I'll be starting
with a beginning and intermediate class, which I'll first teach in person and
then do a Breeze (online) version. Does anyone have any favorite ideas,
resources, or suggestions on how to teach PowerPoint?

One challenge I'm seeing is how to decide what's essential vs. what's nice
to know. Is it better to teach the basics first, and then do a tips and
tricks class later, or to bake it all in together? Do you think a 4 hour
block would be better than several 1 or 2 hour blocks? I know PowerPoint
pretty well but know there's an art to teaching, and I'd like to give my
colleagues the most valuable knowledgable in a fun and easy to learn way.
Thanks
Jeri

 

[Austin Myers]

Lesson One: PowerPoint is NOT a crutch, if you suck at making a
presentation PowerPoint will NOT help you.

Lesson Two: Just because you can do a thing, doesn't mean you should do it.
Animations are to be used SPARINGLY.

Lesson Three: Arial and Times Roman are your friends, use them and leave
the "cute" fonts for artwork.

Lesson Four: If you are color blind or have no color sense, use the built
in color scemes. That's why they are there.

Lesson Five: Refer to Lesson one!


Austin Myers
MS PowerPoint MVP Team

PowerPoint Video and PowerPoint Sound Solutions www.pfcmedia.com

 

[J]

If your office doesn't have templates for presentations it may be useful to
create some. This will help reign in the "creative" types. Then you can just
use "It's company standard" as an excuse when they whine about all their
creativeness being removed.

Then, just teach them what they need to know to use the templates which
should be pretty basic. It's amazing the combinations people will come up
with because they want to show off their "skills."

 

[Echo S]

I agree with what you're saying about templates.

I did a review session with some new employees -- covered templates and
color schemes and explained how using the text placeholders can make their
lives much easier. One of the attendess said afterward, "Wow. I always
thought templates and placeholders were for babies."

That was a real eye-opener for me!