This resource is based on the Digital Coaching Aids Design Studio event which took place on the Community from 7 August to 5 September 2003. It was moderated by Marcus Ragus and Janine Bowes.
There is so much more that you can do with PowerPoint than just produce overheads! The forum, and accompanying five day online workshop, promoted the idea that the simplest of applications can be used to create useful learning resources. It doesn't have to be difficult and you don't have to have programming skills. Inside this resource you’ll find ideas and tips for using the multimedia features of readily available software like PowerPoint to construct interactive Digital Coaching Aids (DCAs).
This article provides links to the 5 workshops as well as a summary of the discussions that took place.
Workshops:
Day 1: Planning a DCA – design issues
Day 2: Importing images
Day 3: Adding custom shows and hyperlinking
Day 4: Simple animation effects
Day 5: Action Buttons and showcasing results
Tips from the participants:
PowerPoint has the power to enable you to develop self-directed learning resources for students, right through to interactive presentations for audiences. You can incorporate sound and video to enhance the learning experience as well as attach documents, assessments - whatever you like - as files for download.
Customised buttons are advantageous in a self paced DCA. You can add sound so that when you scroll over the button it tells you what to do next, or you can even animate them. It's only limited by your imagination.
Some simple rules:
1. Be careful with typography
When we are taught to read (in the west), we are told to start at the top left corner and work our way across and down, left to right and back again until we reach the bottom right corner. This called ‘reading gravity’. From then on we tend through habit to read all publications in that way and we can get quite disorientated by designs that force our eyes to move against reading gravity. At best we lose concentration and reading rhythm, at worst we only absorb a small percentage of the meaning of the text - or give up before reading it all. (Taken from a publication by Colin Wheildon, published by Newspaper Advertising Bureau of Australia Ltd, North Sydney, NSW)
2. Minimise use of uppercase and bold text
These can also decrease comprehension when reading on screen.
3. Be careful with colour
Sometimes colours can look attractive but reduce comprehension dramatically.
Remember also, colour can look quite different on a normal computer screen to on a large projection screen. Always run a test viewing.
4. Don’t over use "whiz bangs"
i.e. Graphics, sound, animation etc. These can distract the learner from the information being delivered.
Useful links:
Access and Equity site http://www.flexiblelearning.net.au/accessequity/everyone_online/index.php
Tutorial designed to show managers and practitioners simple techniques they can use to design and develop accessible elearning products.
The Netride
http://www.thenetride.com.au/default.htm
Some useful PowerPoint tips available as small downloads.
On the Oswego City School District site there are some examples of simple PowerPoint shows: http://www.oswego.org/start.cfm
Using PowerPoint as a Self-Test tool
I have been setting up self-tests for tool identification (yes/no, true/false questions) for a while now -
Simply insert a question or photo and give alternative answers that are simply linked to a sound file. (PowerPoint has a few sound files but it is not difficult to record your own). When the student clicks on the answer they think is correct, the positive or negative sound file is played. (Ear phones are a good idea here as the class will all be working autonomously).
Alternatively, the answer (right or wrong) can be linked to another slide that gives them information about their answer, with a return button to let them have another try, or a forward button if they get the answer right.
Q&As
Question: I need to develop numerous presentations for basic IT courses. How do you get pictures of the computer screen into a presentation?
Answer: It's so easy! Essentially these are ‘screen grabs’ What you will need to do is:
- Open the program you wish to demonstrate.
- Take screen grabs by pressing the 'Print Screen' key on your keyboard. (Some keyboards require you to press the 'Function' then 'Print Screen' key).
- Paste into your DCA (Press ‘Ctrl’ and ‘V’ or the paste icon in the PowerPoint menu).
If you need to crop the screen images use the cropping tool available in the PowerPoint. Click on the picture then open the picture toolbar by clicking ‘view’ > ‘toolbars’ > ‘picture.’ Then click on the crop tool …and crop away!!
Question: We have developed a very comprehensive DCA using PowerPoint and it is currently available on our intranet. We would like to make it available online without the user having to open up PowerPoint and go through all the usual steps i.e. we want the 'slide show' to start automatically while the full interactive components are maintained. Can anyone suggest how to achieve this?
Answer: One feature available within PowerPoint is 'Save as web page' under ‘file’ in the main menu. This feature writes its own version of html code and provides you with a web enabled product. However it has limitations, one being that you are stuck with the format it chooses to use. Although you can manipulate that if you know your html code.
If you are using online learning/communications programs like WeBCT version 4 and others, these often transfer PowerPoint shows into online formats quite well.
Some programs convert PowerPoint presentations to web enabled formats:
OpenOffice http://www.openoffice.org/ is a free download.
Impatica http://www.impatica.com/higher-ed/ can be downloaded as a trial version.
Macromedia Breeze http://www.macromedia.com/software/breeze/ can be downloaded as a trial version.
To produce a show only version of a PowerPoint presentation you can save the presentation as a show in the 'Save as' box. It will then open up in ‘show’ rather than ‘edit’ view.
Question: How would you explain the difference between ‘Custom Shows’ and ‘Branched Presentations’?
Answer: Custom shows are multi-faceted and have links to websites or other digital media. The user can decide which order they present the show in. It’s essentially a show of anywhere from one slide, to many slides within one linear presentation. It can have other links attached within each individual show. Branched is a collection of linear presentations connected by a link page.
The branched presentation has a lot of possibilities and is very flexible. You can link to as many separate presentations as you wish and they can be changed or updated as you require. So therefore you might have a range of other presentations sitting in a resources area and a front end DCA that links to each. Customising the front end DCA would be as simple as redirecting the links to whatever you want to present.
Contributors:
Tristenne Van Heythuysen, Ann Tattersall, Marcus Ragus, Suzanne Norris, Andrea Neale, Sue McShane, Patricia Kalle, Louise Housden, Norm Henrickson, Sue Gleeson, Katie Crews, John Collins, Janine Bowes
