In order to avoid the dreaded curse of slideuments (presentations that are basically word documents pasted into a PowerPoint and helpful to no one), I wanted to point my students to some handy resources and ideas for creating presentations that are effective, memorable, and visually stimulating.
Two helpful websites that write about and compile presentation ideas are Garr Reynold’s Blog Presentation Zen, which expands on his book of the same name, and Note & Point, which is an online gallery of effective presentations. Presentations included on this site such as “7 Tips to Create Visual Presentations” (embedded below) and “How to Create Slides that Rock” practice what they preach.
Nancy Duarte’s company and her books, Slideology in particular, always provide helpful resources for communicating our ideas clearly to one another. Just ask Al Gore, whose presentation An Inconvenient Truth was designed by Duarte’s crew.
We watched brief excerpts of two TED presentations, one on by Larry Lessig on laws that choke creativity, and one by Wade Davis on worldwide web of belief and ritual. Both highlight different–yet highly effective–presentation styles.
Lastly, two related videos concerning the power of language as a tool for communication: Taylor Mali’s poem “Totally like Whatever, you Know” (It’s nice to see he gave up on the ponytail) and Stephen Fry’s “Language.”
Thanks to Mr. Nilsen for pointing me to some of these resources.
