SOCSCI – Slide Design Discussion

Connect

Take a look at the video linked below, in which undergraduate students are unknowingly subjected to one of the worst academic presentations of their lives. Fortunately, the presenter was a fictitious and exaggerated caricature of real instructors. Unfortunately, many of those habits are quite common in our contemporary classrooms and workplaces!

Content

Learning Outcomes

By the end of this module, you should be able to:

  • organize your ideas, evidence, and arguments so far,
  • critically assess slide design, and
  • develop a twenty-slide presentation storyboard on your topic.

Preparing a Presentation

This module will be kept relatively light in terms of content so that you can focus your time and effort on the Presentation Storyboard activity.

The information page for that assignment contains plenty of direction, fodder for thought, and guidance on its own. Be sure that you have reviewed it (and the requirements/expectations for the assignment) before getting started with the Study section below so that you know why this week’s material is relevant.

It is increasingly common to complement public talks, lectures, and presentations with visual slides using Microsoft PowerPoint or other programs such as Google Slides or Apple’s Keynote. As we will see in the videos and resources linked below, too many slides, or too-cluttered slides, can have a horrendous effect. However, there are some tips, tricks, and principles that can help you to make sure that your own slides, if you use them, are effective.

Study

The video ‘Death by PowerPoint’ was developed in order to convince potential customers to try out a digital service called SlideBean. Even though it is a marketing video, it nicely captures some of the common problems recognized by both students and instructors when it comes to how slides are used at university and in the broader community. The second video takes a comedic look at some of the worst offenses that users of PowerPoint commit.

Watch the following two (2) videos:

  • Death by PowerPoint (opens in a new tab) (5:42 min)
  • Life After Death by PowerPoint (opens in a new tab) (3:59 min)

Designing a Presentation Storyboard

To help you further prepare for the assignment, check out the following resources that respectively take a closer look at what is involved in creating a ‘storyboard’, and what the PechaKucha presentation format you will be using for the presentation actually looks like.

The PechaKucha Format

The PechaKucha format for presentations offers a limited structure that can help encourage designers to make strategic choices about what to show and tell in a presentation. Knowing about the PechaKucha format will help you to succeed on your presentation storyboard. Please examine the PechaKucha website here: