By Kassandra Ortega
It is all about the presentation. Libraries and schools utilize various presentation tools such as Powerpoint and Google Slides to inform, instruct, intrigue, and persuade audiences. This post focuses on how to create an interesting and engaging Powerpoint or Google presentation that grasps the audiences’ attention.
It is important to ensure that your presentation is both “educational and entertaining.” (Belben, 2003). To do this, you must ensure that your presentation is pleasing, tailors to the audience’s needs, and is unique. Your presentation should stand out of the crowd compared to the countless, plain as day presentations the audience have seen before.
Now here are some strategies to make your presentation successful. Having a welcoming attitude is one way to make your audience feel comfortable and more engaged with what you are presenting. This can range from greeting individuals, giving them a small activity to work on as they wait, to handing out little treats (Belben). Another strategy is to always be organized. An audience can quickly tell when you have adequately prepared for your presentation.
Presentations should be meaningful. Question your audience by getting them to really think deeply. Encourage them to reflect on presentation materials. Using engaging examples, Lamb and Johnson’s article recommends when doing a history presentation to attach photos of everyday people, even of old photos of your own family members from the time period. Make the examples compelling by including stories, videos, and photographs that make the presentation more personal and alive.
Incorporate more technology. Although using Powerpoint and Google slides is already a technological presentation tool in itself, there are many more digital tools that can be used to make the presentation more engaging. Including polls, kahoots, forums, Google jamboards, online games, and more to get the audience engaged.
Presentations do not have to be the boring five to seven minute drawn out talk it once was. Presentations in the digital age with fun tools such as Powerpoint and Google slides can be meaningful and engaging as long as both the presenter and audience are ready to learn.
Works Cited Belben, Cathy. "Making a Gift of Yourself: Preparing for SuccessfulConference Presentations." Teacher
Librarian, vol. 31, no. 1, 2003, pp. 12-14. EBSCOhost; Academic Search Complete, https://login.ezproxy.palomar.edu/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=12123755&site=ehost-live&scope=site.
Lamb, Annette, and Larry Johnson. “Stop PowerPoint Paranoia: Thinking Differently about Presentation
Projects.” Teacher Librarian, vol. 38, no. 5, June 2011, pp. 59–64. EBSCOhost, https://search-ebscohost-com.ezproxy.palomar.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=lxh&AN=62570045&site=ehost-live&scope=site.
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