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What makes this harder is that this reality has not made it's way into the minds of many parents. Parents had very traditional experiences and they therefore tend to think and believe that it should still be that way, when in fact, our reality has changed. It's hard when parents make comments to students about what the classroom and teacher should be like....

This can be quite the challenge because there are tons of new Web 2.0 tools coming out each year (seemingly every month!). It's hard to keep on top of and be able to diligently choose which tools will meet the intended need best.

I agree with this! How to keep up? As teachers we have asked for our District to have coaches usher the best new apps to the teachers to try in our classroom. It's too hard to keep up on what we could be using. So far that idea has not really happened. Maybe it just has not happened YET?

Interesting! Guilty of including more than 6 words per slide.

I am so guilty of this and realize my presentations were BORING!

It is hard to imagine six words! I am going to have to work hard to manage that

Yeah... I don't like the term "rule" here. More like a guideline.

Six words will be extremely hard for me. I think I have mastered using phrases instead of sentences, but this will be a challenge.

I am guilty of doing this, as I think many people would be! 

Never thought of this. It would get audiences attention.

I like this idea for keeping the attention of my students. 

Seems like a no-brainer to me. Music people do this all the time, I NEVER use canned sounds. There is a balance though, between using music as an attention getter and trying to actually connect it to the presentation. I have seen many attempts at this that are more distracting than anything. Making sure the cut of music makes sense is important to.

I like sound in the background when I make an imovie. This could work here too. Again, my audience is middle schoolers and they love to listen to music and do anything else at the same time.

I need to keep working on figuring out what is important and what is a priority!

This is an important idea to remember.  It seems like a difficult task though! 

I love how these words come together to make SUCCESs!  Goes together so well.  

It makes things so much more interesting when we make it something people can visualize- nobody likes to look at a bunch of facts and figures.

This is something I struggle with- I love looking at these pictures in these articles and think they are so useful and relevant but have a hard time thinking of how to pull them into my own presentations.  Hoping this is something I improve on greatly in this class.

My presentations tend to have lots of visuals, but I need to incorporate other visuals that create this effect.  Some of the visuals I use are better at this than others.  

I feel that this is so true.  I try to use stories a lot in my classroom and have realized when I do it really helps my students remember better.

And I like the idea of using a picture to support the story. If you think about Ted Talks this is what most of them do,

I have never heard of the redundancy effect but it makes sense. We want to use multiple modalities but not with identical information...then folks get annoyed

It is so true. I was just talking to a student the other day about this. When information is redundant, that is the exact point they tune out (if they haven't already due to poor communication).

I'm guilty of redundancy. Probably because that's what we are so commonly exposed to in school and in continuing education.

Yes... redundancy. Like when I am talking to my son about mowing the yard and he has his video game on at the same time. And then the yard doesn't get mowed. He can now say... "sorry, dad, you didn't adjust for redundancy". That is something he would say, by the way.

This was interesting to me as I know people do better with memos if you DO use bullets. They scan and look for the content. However, in a presentation this backfires because of the redundancy effect. So bullets have a place, just not in powerpoint!

I agree with this comment.  When I get an email that is several paragraphs long, I rarely make it past the first couple of sentences.  Bullets do help in this situation, but not if someone is just going to read the bullets to me.  

Important take away from this article

Yes, I am guilty of not listening when a presenter puts all of their content on the slides.  Especially when they give you a copy of their presentation.  Why would I expect my students/listeners to be any different?  

I often feel insulted when I am read to and figure that if they give me a copy, I can just figure it out on my own later thanks to them giving me the notes! I zone out too...I think the effort to ditch the current use of Power Point really depends on the purpose of the presentation and the expectations placed on the presenter. My sister works for Nationwide as a project presenter and she is REQUIRED to give a copy of the presentation, and the expectation is that EVERYTHING she will say is in the presentation. She is basically mandated to produce death by Power Point and fears that a change in method will result in complaints and negative feedback. She loved the ideas I shared with her from this article and the course. I think that in both schools, and the business world, there will need to be a lot of pre-teaching and change in the purpose for the presentation. We often combine the detailed notes with the presentation. This approach separates the two.

I find myself catching up on emails when a presenter is reading the PP. I assume if they're reading it, I don't need to look at it.

I gave that up a long time ago. Seems like students are then more interested in the handouts and zone out.

I feel like having a print out of the slides would also allow the audience to tune you out. 

I also stopped doing this a long time ago. I am guilty of "tuning out" when I have the exact same thing in my hand that is on the screen - I don't need someone to read it to me. However, I sometimes like to have the print out at the end as a reminder....

Great strategy.

How to create the curiosity.  

This is so true. We need to re-think the way we are using the tool and realise that it is us that needs to change how we are using the tool. I have recently had this revelation with several apps we use in the classroom on our iPads. We too easily blame the tool and not the brain behind using the tool.

This helps me understand why when we see a visual it is easier to remember the verbal message that came with it. I was surprised to see how many images I remembered when Alvin Trusty showed them at the end of his presentation. Powerful.

This goes along with visual notes.  Traditionally, students are encouraged to take notes using only text.  There is a movement and research that suggests using visuals in the note taking process actually helps students retain more information.  

I recently watched the Sunni Brown Ted Talk on Doodling.  If you haven't watched it, it's worth checking out.  I have been a doodler all my life and this makes so much sense to me. It matches your comments about using visuals on note taking. https://www.ted.com/talks/sunni_brown

I find that this works when you add a kinesthetic movement to an idea as well. The nonverbal cue, even if given by the presenter can be equally effective in triggering a memory later.

This makes me think twice about how I should start a presentation. I think it would be most effective to have a strong visual that hits up the major message you are going to get at. It should evoke emotion from the start.

It is so essential that we get at students' curiosity when we teach! We are the same way as adult learners. What do we take pride in learning? Things we are interested in and genuinely curious about. If we can strike curiosity in our listeners, it will give ownership to the learning and make it personal for them. Curiosity drives innovation and new levels of learning!

Curiosity also engages the higher order thinking that as educators we are always trying to get students to participate in!

When creating presentations, remember this fact.  It doesn't mean the death of PPT, just reinforcing the fact that presenters need to look at the presentation differently.  

Good point! It doesn't mean one is better than the other... just can't do both at the same time via PPT.

I lose students when they take notes during a discussion or story. Fine for facts.

This is an interesting thought.  I wonder how well it would work with high school students?  It's nice that students would be able to focus on what is being said, but at the same time studies show that more information is remembered when actual writing (not typing) takes place. 

This applies to all technology, not just Power Point. I'd say "making a webpage" is not a method either... it should be a medium to a greater purpose. Teaching students this so that they truly understand it, though, can be challenging. I'd say we don't do this very well in K-12 education.

I LOVE this! We actually use a method for creating lesson plans called the "Comprehensive Musicianship Plan" which emphasizes the need for an affective outcome in each lesson. I think that this can be applied to having an affective outcome for every presentation. If you can't connect your audience to the heart of what you are saying, and draw some sort of emotional emphasis, it will never stay with them in the long run.

I think back to presentations I've attended and how many of those actually motivated a change in my behavior. The common theme was that successful presentationsI left me feeling angry, embarrassed, happy, or encouraged.

To "not dumb down" is something to stress. I struggle with the balance of not being overly-technical, and at the same time, avoiding the trap of dumbing down the information. I often try to think the way a news reporter would. How can we get this across in a short number of words, so most people can understand, but so that those who have elevated levels of understanding aren't turned off?

The key is to keep that message in mind as we organize a presentation.

True... even when it isn't really a persuasive presentation, there is still a mindset that you are trying to get your audience to adopt. That is what is difficult for me.

We want to help them to remember- adding the emotion helps with the memory!

I had an instructor use every imaginable transition and sound effect during my undergrad work. It was so loud and frustrating that I found myself focusing on the transitions instead of the material.

I find all these transitions distracting, also. Ugh.

I like to close my eyes when someone is relaying a complex idea. I think if the idea is less difficult to comprehend the effect is less. But by personal experience, i agree.

this seems like a good way to remember to complement ideas verbally with images in the powerpoint - right brain/left brain. people enjoy being fully engaged.

Remember to forget. This is hard. Knowing and meeting your audience where they are is crucial.

This is one of my goals for future presentations. Surprises are exciting and engage your audience.

Good question to remember!

Another reminder to not put EVERY word on the PowerPoint slides.

Keyword to remember: reinforce

I think this is important, I have recently tried incorporating storytelling into my presentations, letting the audience know how I got to where I am in my journey with the topic and why it is something I am passionate about. This ties in with the idea of striking the emotional side of the audience mentioned in the other article.

I feel like this was one of my biggest ah ha's. I love stories and hearing the presenters story is always engaging. When I have shared a story in class, it has students attention, they interact, ask questions, volunteer information. When we are working through slides, I feel llike I need to sing and dance to hold their attentions. Stories are powerful! I have just not ever considered it as a presentaion method.

I think it is important to note that PowerPoint is a tool that can be used effectively, but just simply having a PowerPoint doesn't make it purposeful just through using it. The design of a presentation includes multiple facets, the visual presentation is just one of them.

The key lies in what is the purpose of the presentation and how does the tool(powerpoint) aid in the purpose.

I am a fan of acryonyms when they are easy to recall, I like that all of these are described below in more detail, but the "memory" word describes it well enough to trigger what you should remember when designing presentations.

I think this becomes difficult in many settings educationally because the focus has always been on a away to help visual learners gather information. They are often used to be a note guide or a resource to refer back to. I wonder if the shift to being able to screencast would help this. I also wonder about how it leaves out the visual, non-auditory learners. I also think that as a resource, it is less effective if there is an audio track because then the viewer has more to sift through. But it is perhaps more effective as a teaching tool because they can use it to re-teach. Perhaps it is more about purpose matching the delivery. 

Somewhere along the presentation education line, these things get mixed up. When giving a presentation, there should only be key words to cue the speaker or drive a point home. I think that the concept of "cue the speaker" has lead to all of the text. We feel unprepared and this becomes a crutch. I think this is what most of my student struggle with. Although, this course is mostly focused on the teacher, as a high school English teacher, I think these concepts should be taught to our students as well.

I completely agree. I think it has been drilled into people to use the text as cues on what to talk about, but I think this has become misleading and has led to text on the slides that detracts from the presentation rather than add to it.

I love this idea! This would keep your audience engaged in the presentation and allow them to not worry about if they have all of the bullet points written down word for word for the text. This would allow the information to flow faster because you don't have to provide wait time.  

This makes it a lot more work too, but it is worth it if the information stays with them. They will remember the power of your presentation. They also will feel that they have missed something if they weren't present. 

It also saves you from having to present or follow-up later to go over the same information!

I think that sometimes this could be negative part of a presentation. The key here is to create something unexpected that directly connects to what you are talking about and proves your message. Often, I see people pulling something out just to break up the presentation and to give them a mind break. It is important to wrap those things together (mind break and message) to really get this aspect accomplished. 

I think the key here is the word "element." I have been part of presentations where you are there to hear about and idea, and they end up telling you story after story. They are loosely connected, but I find myself disengaged with the content and the focus because I am wondering "how many of the "rabbit trails" we are going to go on?" I think you should use stories to help with concepts and examples, keeping them short and to the point.  

I think it's particularly hard in education, as we don't often have the "whole story" about a students success as they leave us and transition to another stage in their life. Teacher or student success stories are powerful and touch our hearts. For implementing new practices/techniques, or strategies, a true life story from a teacher is always more powerful.

I found this so interesting and it can be counterintuitive, but the more I thought about it the more I reflected on how often I completely tune out as a result of seeing and hearing the same content (ie someone reading their powerpoint slide)

This was a stand out to me as weel. The more I thought about it the more I agreed with it. When I have bene presented to, it is extreamly distracting to try to read a slide while someone else is reading it out loud.

In education, it's often about what is the implementation piece associated with the presentation/learning/ etc. How do we hold ourselves accountable for the information presented

I really struggle with this. I'm never sure how technical to get with my language as I want the audience to feel comfortable with the content, but not feel like I am "talking down to them"

I really need to work on this one and spend some time coming up with better examples, stories, and analogies in my presentations to make things more concrete.

This is so true. I think it's critical on how you set up the audience for what the purpose is, how this will help/impact them, and what they will/should walk away with.

Kind of shocking actually. The second slide??? All the more reason to ne mindful of what you are sharing.

I too am guilty of this. I sometimes feel that what I have to say on a topic is so important that it can't wait or that I have to include it. As a principal, I've had to learn to be disciplined to sometimes save my thoughts when others are presenting and not interrupt their presentations for my own sake of speaking!

I do feel that I try to connect with teachers emotionally. I am very vulnerable in my communication with teachers. I don't want to be known as the expert and thus I engage a lot of teachers to be with me in presenting, sharing, modeling, etc. Acknowledge how busy we know they all are, but surround it with how important our new learning is for the benefit of students.

Speaking to the diagram allows one to have their own thoughts, and consider the presenters ideas I beleive without the overload suggested by reaing the slide to them. I like the idea of an image that gets to the emotion or the concept that you are trying to get across.

I love this! Of course anything done in the sand this time of the year in Iowa seems like a GREAT idea. I know I am guilty of starting with the slide and not the overall concept. It is so easy to rearrange slides in power point that is it ewasy to get caught up in headfirst jumping.

Yep! save it until the end. How many conferences have you been to that people stick their head in the door, grab a copy of your slides, handout, whatever, and turn around and head out. If they could sit and listen knowing they will get materials at the end, I believe they will have a better learning experience.

Easier said than done, but how very important! I know this is one that I will be giving lots of thought to.

Weird thought: I've turned my thinking on this to include slides of how I would make up slide for the rules.

I think the real problem is that there are too many words on most power points and this is why we tend to read them to students.

I'm imagining going to a conference and seeing the same type of Powerpoint over and over again! I don't think I would want to continue going to presentations because the boring factor would be too much for me.

I have been witness to something close to this. I was in Las Vegas for a week long PLC Conference and almost every presenter had the same format, slides, clipart. As the week went on I found myself concentrating on the speaker and less on the slides. I fell the message was lost in many presentations.

I too have been to a seminar like this. We checked out early before the snores started.

Many people like to come to presentations with a printed out PP, they take notes on them....then recycle them later.  It is a very boring style to have to sit through and I find myself zoning out.

This happened way too often in my college days! Everything looked just the same!

This is a scary thought. You really don't have much time to catch your audience's attention. I would assume, in students this could be even faster!

I think this line is the most important one in the entire article. We really need to do something different and attention grabbing right away, or we've lost them by slide 2.

Seems like going back to the basics. This is what we used to do before powerpoint.

This is something I am going to do.  I was wondering what the audience would think, but it will help to keep me organized.  In the end, I may not need them much.

I don't use cue cards, but I do use the "notes" component of google slides. It helps me review my talking points before I present, but keeps me from reading from cue cards.

I had always thought this was a good idea. I remember times that I wanted print-outs of a presentation so that I could make notes on them. But, that must be because there are too many words on the slides!

I agree, I always tried to get a copy of the presentation. Taking notes on each slide helped me remember the most important ideas. If I try and take notes with the slide it makes no sense to me later. I am not sure how I would do without the handout.

This seems to be the problem, presenters who just read what is on the screen. I had a teacher who, before Powerpoint existed, would have his entire lesson written on overheads and would stand and read them. So very boring!

Wow... that's even worse that ppt reading. I thought overheads were expressed domain of "filling out the worksheet as a class"

I guess that is what we are trying to focus on - using the presentation as a tool for the audience rather than as a crutch for the presenter.

I had not thought about this, but I do find that if I am reading the powerpoint, I am missing what the presenter is saying. At our last meeting I asked one of our teachers if he could repeat his question because I was reading something and had heard the answers but completely missed what the question was

I have problems with this as well. Whenever there is a lot of text on the screen and I'm in the audience, I invariably find myself just finishing the passage as the person is moving to the next slide, and I've missed everything that they said.

This is enlightening! I thought for sure I was ADD! I am constantly missing the verbal information is I concentrate on the text of the slide. It can become an exhausting task during a lengthy presentation.

Ditto, I thought that I was reaching all types of learners, but I might have been reaching none. WOW

I think this would be a great way to plan out a presentation. Sometimes you just need to start with good old paper and pencil.

Yes, I think this would keep the technology "in check."  The technology is then just a tool to aid what I am trying to present rather than the technology controlling how I do my presentation.

It occurred to me that the act of using pen and paper in an analog way, makes the activity more active and therefore more exciting for the brain.

This speaks to me! I think some presenters try to make their presentations unique which translates into complicated, wordy, unfocused. And yes I amone of them! This makes me think of the old saying "Keep It Simple Stupid!"

I guess I knew this, but hadn't really thought about it.  Many times in the past when presenting with PowerPoint I have just stopped mid-talk and allowed my students to copy what was on the screen before I continued speaking.

Great point here for educators.  Great idea to think of the presentation in terms of the students' brains.  In the past for me the focus of the presentation has been purely on the content.

I have experienced this first hand. I will work at taking this advice and I know I should have better results than in the past.

This will really help students figure out what is most important in their learning. By keeping things simple, it also helps the teacher prioritize what is most important to focus on.

This is a great way to connect with young elementary students, especially non-readers or low level readers. 

The redundancy effect is something I hadn't ever thought of but it makes sense.  When something can be read off the screen, our brains kind of turn off the listening part...unless it's novel.

The word "power" in power point is misleading. There really is no power in it unless you provide it through an active, engaging presentation.

I'm not sure if I agree with this all of the time- sometimes using the presentation with the slideware first is the best way to organize thoughts. This first use could easily be done in a non-distracting way by not using the templates and content wizards.

What about with young elementary students? I use slides daily to give directions- I put the words on the screen, read the words, and then leave them while the students work? Young kids often struggle remembering many steps at once, how else can the teacher get these ideas across? Possibly other visuals.

It's not just young kids who have difficulty remembering instructions. My college students do too! :)

Reinforcing is a powerful word choice that is spot on when thinking about presentations and communication.

A must for all presentations. If you want to grow, serve your audience and be effective, feedback loops are critical.

So true, whether it be presenting or teaching.  Unless you plan for feedback, interaction, and checks for understanding, it is truly hard to stay in that moment and perspective of your audience.

It is hard to act "casual" when you are trying to be professional and want to be taken seriously.