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Using PowerPoint to Create Learning Resources
Activity 1 – Issues for Discussion
Spend a few minutes reflecting on each of the following questions. Your answers
should help you to better understand your own needs and thus able to make the best
use of that other activities in this workshop.
1. Why do you use/want to use PowerPoint in teaching and learning?
2. Do you use it primarily in face to face situations?
3. Do you want/need to use it to support ‘distance learning’?
4. Do you want to include PowerPoint presentations in Blackboard?
5. If so, why?
Is it to disseminate information?
Is it to empower note taking?
Is it to create interactivities?
6. Are you using Blackboard to support face to face or distance learning?
Activity 2 – Exchanging Information between Word and PowerPoint
Application 1 – Using Word to generate PowerPoint Presentation
If you have used styles to structure a Word document, you can easily use this
structure to create a PowerPoint presentation. If you haven’t previously used styles
to structure Word documents, we would recommend that you either attend the Word
workshop in this series or work through the materials contained in the accompanying
Blackboard folder “Using MS Word to Create Learning Resources” before
proceeding with these activities.
However, if wish to experiment with this now and have little experience of working
with styles, you can use the ‘Formatted Word Document’ that you will find in the
Sample Documents folder to complete this and some of the other activities.
Step 1 – Open a document.
Either open a Word document that you have previously formatted using styles or
open the ‘Formatted Word Document’ that you will find in the Sample Documents
folder’.
[N.B. In order to use the ‘Formatted Word Document’, go to the Sample Documents
folder and click on the file. If your computer offers to let you save the file, save it to a
convenient location as ‘Sample Document’. Then open it in Word. If your computer
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just opens the document, use the cursor to select all the text. Click the right mouse
button and choose copy. Then paste the material into a new document in Word and
save it to convenient location as ‘Sample Document’.
Step 2 – Generating a presentation
From the Menu Bar in Word:
Choose File
Choose Send to
Choose Microsoft PowerPoint
You should now see an outline version of a PowerPoint presentation.
Step 3 – Applying a Design
In order to enhance the presentation:
In PowerPoint 2000, Choose Apply design from the 'common tasks' palette.
Choose a design and Click on Apply; or
In PowerPoint XP, Choose Design from the right hand side of the Menu Bar and
select a design from the Slide Design window that appears.
You have now 'painlessly' created a PowerPoint presentation based on the major
headings of your Word document. Of course, you can now edit these slides using all
of the many other features of PowerPoint.
Note: If you used Word to create a Table of Contents (See Word Workshop, Activity
2, Step 5, Application 2), it will have been ignored when the document outline was
sent to PowerPoint; but any hyperlinks or bookmarks that you have included (see
Word Workshop, Activity 2, Steps 1 & 2) will have been preserved and still work.
Save your PowerPoint presentation.
A note about PowerPoint and ‘Designing for All’
PowerPoint is an enormously powerful presentation tool with wide range of
features that can, in the hands of skilled designer, be used to great effect. However,
these same features can, if not skillfully used, be distracting for many viewers and
positively disruptive for viewers with visual or cognitive disabilities (e.g. dyslexics).
‘Design for All’ is a simple concept that argues that in designing anything we should
seek to design it so that it meets everyone’s needs. Unfortunately, PowerPoint, both
as a live presentation tool and an electronic dissemination medium, can be somewhat
problematic from a ‘design for all’ perspective. However, there are some simple
things that you can do to make sure that your PowerPoint presentations effectively
meet the needs of your audience:
Use your slides to display information sparingly. Often a good PowerPoint
presentation is almost content free. It will have only a few slides and their
primary purpose will simply be to provide the audience with a sort of map of what
the presenter is saying. Presentations like this may not be suitable for
dissemination electronically. Without the presenter’s content, they may be
meaningless.
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Be careful to insure that there is a strong contrast between the foreground and the
background of your slides. However, you may wish to avoid simple black on
white. This can be problematic for some viewers. Also, subtle gradations of
colour or contrast can look very impressive on a small computer screen, but render
the materials unintelligible to anyone when projected onto a larger screen.
Similarly, even a strong and seemingly contrasting colour (like bright yellow on
white) may fail to project intelligibly. This is not a ‘problem’ with the
technology. It is in the nature of the activity. Designing for a 14 inch screen is
different to designing for a five foot or forty foot one.
Use purely decorative images sparingly. Especially be careful that decorative
background images don’t obscure the foreground message. You may also need to
learn how to ‘tag’ such images before disseminating them electronically. We will
touch on this later in the workshop (see Activity 4).
Similarly use PowerPoint’s bells and whistles carefully. PowerPoint has many
animation and other features. These can be very effective, but they can also be
confusing and irritating. Before using them, think carefully about what you are
hoping to achieve and don’t just use them ‘for effect’.
In short, simplicity and clarity are often the hallmarks of a good PowerPoint
presentation and are also likely to insure that the presentation is useful to the widest
possible audience.
There is more specific information about how to insure the accessibility of
PowerPoint presentations that are being disseminated electronically in Activity 4 and
you can learn more about education and ‘design for all’ from the JISC’s TechDis
Service (http://www.techdis.ac.uk).
Application 2 – Using PowerPoint to get an outline from a Word document.
You can also begin with PowerPoint and automatically generate a presentation from a
Word document. To do this:
Open a new PowerPoint presentation.
Choose the title slide.
Apply a design.
Choose Insert.
Choose slides from outline.
Browse to the file you want and select it.
Choose Insert.
Save the new presentation if you wish.
Application 3 – Using PowerPoint to provide an outline for a Word document.
You can also take the structure of an existing PowerPoint presentation use it to
provide an outline structure for a Word document. To do this:
Open a PowerPoint presentation.
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[You may wish to use the Sample Presentation in the Sample Documents
folder. If so, open it and save it to a convenient location. N.B. if you are
attending a workshop in the LRC, you will need to: Open a blank PowerPoint
presentation and then Open the Sample Presentation file, right click on it,
select edit slides, select outline, then select all, then Copy and finally Paste the
outline into the blank presentation and Save it to a convenient location with a
name like MySamplePresentation.]
Choose file.
Choose Send to.
Chose Microsoft Word.
Under “Page layout in Microsoft Word”
Choose Outline only.
[N.B. examine the other choices carefully. You can also use this method to
produce a range of different sorts of handouts to accompany your
presentation.]
Click on OK. This automatically exports the headings and sub-headings of
your presentation into Word and provides an outline structure that you can use
in writing up the full text of your presentation. You can also use this technique
to produce handouts (see Activity 3, Application 3).
This outline will preserve the style characteristics from PowerPoint. These will
probably not be appropriate to a full-text document. However, you can easily change
these by applying an alternative style template (see Word Workshop, Activity 1, Step
2-4). You can also then convert this outline to a readable, accessible HTML format
for inclusion in Blackboard or elsewhere on the Internet (see Activity 4).
Save this document to a convenient place (e.g. the desktop) with a name like
MyPPTOutline. You may wish to use it later.
Activity 3 – Creating Over Head Transparencies (OHTs) and Handouts with
PowerPoint
Application 1 – Creating OHTs
Staff sometimes argue that there is no point in using PowerPoint if you can’t be
sure that you will have access to a computer and projector in the classroom. Actually
this isn't true. PowerPoint is very good at generating OHTs. All you need to do is
print your slides onto transparencies or print them out and then photocopy them onto
transparencies.
If you don't have access to a colour printer/photocopier, you should probably print
your slides in Black and White. To do this:
Choose File. Choose Print. In the menu box labeled Color/Grey Scale Choose pure
black and white. You preview the results by Clicking Preview. If you are attached to
a printer, you can print off the slides by Clicking on OK.
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However, before you print your slides in Black and White it is advisable to check
them first. To do this:
Choose View.
Choose Black and White.
[N.B. You may find that if you have included complex graphics in your slides,
especially on the background, that the Black & White version will not be entirely
acceptable and you may need to edit in order get good quality OHTs.
Application 2 – Creating Handouts
PowerPoint has a range of built in ways of creating Handouts. Just as in
Application 1 above, you can choose to print the slides and notes in various ways that
can then be photocopied and distributed as handouts rather than used as OHTs.
If you don’t necessarily want to print off the handouts yourself, but wish to give
your students the opportunity to do so themselves, you can, having made your
presentation available electronically (e.g. by uploading a PowerPoint presentation in
Blackboard), instruct your students as to how to print it off.
Or following the instructions in Activity 2, Application 3, you can choose to send
your PowerPoint presentation to Word where you can further edit it and either print it
off or, following the instructions in Activity 2 of the Word workshop, you can convert
it to readable accessible HTML for inclusion in Blackboard or elsewhere on the web.
(Also see Activity 4 of this workshop.)
You can learn more about these standard PowerPoint strategies from the help
system or by attending on the CLQE advanced PowerPoint workshops (see the Staff
Development Intranet site – http://cwis.tees.ac.uk/sdt/ for details.)
Application 3 – Using a PowerPoint outline in Word to support note taking
One drawback to using some of the standard strategies in PowerPoint to produce
handouts is that they can produce large handouts consisting of many pages. Of
course, where the presentation contains lots of important graphical data, this may be
necessary; but, where a presentation is largely text and the purpose is primarily to
provide the audience with a structured document to support note taking, producing an
outline version in Word and then editing it as follows can be very helpful:
Open the outline document you created in Activity 2, Application 3 (e.g.
MyPPTOutline.doc). Now select all the text and adjust the left hand margin by
dragging the left indent control (a small square under 2 small, facing triangles) on the
ruler at the top of the page to the two and half and mark on the ruler and Save the
document. Having done this need you should adjust the document so that outline
doesn’t break oddly at the ends of pages. If you have any important graphics you may
also wish cut and paste these into an appropriate place, but make sure you caption
them if they are not self-explanatory. Once you have done these things, you will have
an outline of your presentation with plenty of space for notes.
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If you wish to reduce the size of your handout still further, you can use Word to
print to pages on a single sheet of A4. This will still leave a readable document with
space for notes. However, you should always bring a few full size handouts in case
there are any members of the audience for whom the larger print size would be
helpful.
In order to print to pages to one sheet:
Select File
Select Print
In the drop down menu labeled pages per sheet in the Zoom box chose 2. Ignore the
scaling.
Choose OK.
Unfortunately, if you aren’t connected to a printer, you can not see the effect.
Activity 4 – Preparing PowerPoint Presentations for electronic dissemination.
There are several ways in which you disseminate PowerPoint presentations
electronically. For example, if you are using Blackboard, you can simply upload your
PowerPoint presentation into Blackboard in the normal way. However, this has the
drawback that you must be sure that your end-users all have access to a compatible
version of PowerPoint. Alternatively, you can save your PowerPoint presentation as
a web page and up load that into Blackboard. N.B. if you do this, you must ZIP your
presentation before uploading it to Blackboard (see Application 2 below).
Unfortunately, for the moment neither of these solutions is satisfactory with
respect to accessibility. This is partly because PowerPoint is a highly visual medium
and partly because of the way Microsoft generates HTML. However, there is an
accessibility wizard that you can use to overcome this. The Wizard is available from
the University of Illinois will create HTML pages from PowerPoint presentations that
meet the requirements of current disability legislation. In order to obtain the
Accessible Web Publishing Wizard for Microsoft ® Office go to
http://cita.rehab.uiuc.edu/software/office/ and follow the instructions. From there you
can install the Wizard and it will appear in the File Menu on your Word Menu Bar as
Save as Accessible Web Page. If you do not have administrator privileges on your
computer, you may need to ask technical support in your School or Department to do
the installation for you. [N.B. if you do not yet have the wizard installed, but wish to
see what the output looks like, you will find an ‘Accessibility Wizard Sample’ among
the Sample Files.
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Application 1 – Using the Accessibility Wizard
Open a presentation (e.g. the sample presentation you created in Activity 2,
application 3). Before processing it, you may wish to remove any purely decorative
images. This will save you the trouble of writing descriptions of them.
Choose File
Choose Save as Accessible Web Page
Now follow the instructions in the Wizard making choices and clicking Next as
necessary.
When asked, write a short description for Decorative Images and short and long
descriptions for Informative Images. [N.B. the wizard doesn’t yet appear to support
media other than text and graphics.]
When asked, Choose all three formats: Text only, Text mostly and Graphical so that
you can compare them. Accept the default settings and choose Speakers Notes and
select Next.
When asked, click on Change, give the file a name (e.g. MyPPTTest) and save it to
the desktop.
The Wizard will now process your file. Depending on the complexity of your
presentation, this may take some time.
When you reach the end of the Wizard, click on Finish and close your PowerPoint
presentation. [N.B. if you leave your presentation open, you can go back to it and run
the wizard again if you want to change something. The wizard will remember and
descriptions that you have given.]
On your desk top you should now find a file and folder with name you gave (e.g.
MyPPTTest and MyPPTTest _files). If you click on the file, it will open an HTML
point of entry to your document. From here you can access each of the three versions
of the file that you have created.
The Text Only version disregards all the graphics and displays only text, including the
long and short descriptions of any graphics included in the presentation and the
speaker’s notes if included. It also provides links to any images included and
separately lists any hyperlinks on each page. This version is primarily of use to
individuals using screen reading software and is not very attractive to others.
The Graphical version looks pretty much like the original, but doesn’t include the
extra descriptions or the speaker’s notes. It is primarily intended for users who have
no accessibility issues.
The Text Mostly version retains some of the graphic look and feel of the original
presentation, but also includes the images and their long descriptions and the
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speaker’s notes, if included; and separately lists any hyperlinks on each page. In
many respects, this version represents the best of both worlds. Although it is not a
fully featured PowerPoint presentation, it retains all of the essential information from
the original along with sufficient additional information to insure that it can be
accessed by anyone.
At this point you can ZIP the file and the folder together (see Application 2) and
then upload them into Blackboard.
Application 2 – ZIP documents for input into Blackboard
Where documents are linked together (e.g. a web site, PowerPoint HTML files, or
Accessibility Wizard HTML files), they must be zipped together in order to preserve
the links in Blackboard. With Windows 2000 and above this is very easy. Just
choose the files you want zipped together and Click the right mouse button, then
choose Send to and Compressed (zipped) Folder. This will immediately create a
zipped (note the icon) folder containing those files. You can then upload the zipped
folder into Blackboard. Try creating a Zipped folder with the file and folder created
during Application 1. [Note: If you are running an earlier version of Windows, you
may need to obtain a separate copy of ZIP from your technical support staff.]
N.B. Remember when you upload a Zipped folder in Blackboard, you must
choose ‘Unpackage this file’ rather than ‘Create a link to this file’. When you do that
Blackboard will ask you which file to begin with. In the case of files created by the
Accessibility Wizard, choose the first file (e.g. MyPPTTest). In the case of
PowerPoint HTML files, you will want to choose the first slide.
