Clever Ways to Make Your Power Points Rise Above

Hi, I'm Denise. I am a recent graduate from CSU Chico with a Bachelor's in Instructional Design. My main interest is in developing elearning.

Most recently I work for UC Davis Extension as an Instructional Designer/Course Developer for their Online Education group. We use Power Point with Articulate, a really cool program that allows the user to go beyond your normal Power Point presentation stuff. Needless to say, I have gotten pretty efficient with Power Point and I LOVE Articulate.

I thought I would share some of my latest creative tips on how to make your presentations more interesting and fun. By doing some of these things, your learners will actually get engaged in your presentations and most likely learn something too, which, we can all agree, is the goal of most everybody's presentations.

The first tip I would give is to come up with an interesting background. Not one of those that you select from Power Point, but one you can make easily enough in Power Point. Select a picture that will go well with your presentation (i.e., if it is on electricity, a picture of the ocean might not work so well - instead maybe a lightbulb or plug washed out a bit). Here's one I bought from IStock:

Once you find your picture, you can set it to watermark in Power Point. I have a Mac at home and am using Power Point 2004. You can find the watermark tool by going into your view menu at the bar on the top, scroll down to tools, and select Picture. Once that window comes up, select "image control" and then click on "watermark." Here is what that will look like after:


FYI - Articulate has many different options to choose from. After inserting the picture, you'll want to click on it and then choose the format tab on the top right. Once in the picture format area, click over on the picture options all the way to the left. There are many to choose from, so just click and watch what happens.


Also, this will set your color(s) for your presentation. If you have trouble matching colors to your background, you can always find websites to help you with that. One I like is called "kuler" powered by Adobe. You can just type in a color, say blue, in the search box and it will return several different swatches with blue and other colors that match. You'll want to play with the buttons at the bottom to find more colors. It's really nice. There are other good sites out there too, I just happen to like this one.

Once you have your background picture set the way you want, go into the slide master. Simply past the picture on the master slide. Make the picture as big (or bigger) as the slide so it fills up all the white space. For your title slide, you may want to add a bar with information. Here's what I did:



This is my master title page.



This is my slide master for all the other slides.

When you change your view from master back to normal, every slide will have this picture background and layout on it.

The Power Point background is now unique and yours. This makes your Power Point pop from the start. Your audience will notice right away getting their interest peaked. This is the first step in engaging your audience. Congradualations!

Welp, that's it for this time. I have a lot of other cool tricks up my sleeve and will share them with you in the time to come. I wish you the best of luck.

U-Verse, new technology from ATandT

So for my blog this week, I decided to write about a new thing AT&T is doing called U-Verse. My brother was telling me about it because he works for the company and so I decided to look it up. It is a pretty cool service, but one that my small town won’t be receiving for a while.

Similar to Comcast, but less expensive, they offer an all-in-one package for TV, telephone, and Internet, however this deal is a little more high tech. It allows one to check your calls from your television and then return the call with a click of the remote, which is called Click to Call. Another cool feature my brother told me about was that, not only does it have DVR recording, but if you forgot to record something you can do it remotely from your cell phone which is somehow linked to your television DVR. They also have voice over Internet Protocol (voIP), which is nice as well.

These seem like great new features and something I would totally go for since right now we have AT&T with a super slow connection speed because of where we live. In California they just finished setting up Santa Rosa and are due to hook up Lake County soon. They only service the areas that have switched over to fiber optic phone lines, so this means they will concentrate on the bigger cities first before coming to the smaller areas.

This is a stretch from what I usually talk about, but it still involves social networking because of its opportunities through communication with others via the television, computer, and/or cell phone service. Anyway, I thought it was interesting, especially since my brother works for the company.

Here is a link so you can check it out if you are interested:

U-Verse

Second Life Field Assignment

I took a few trips into Second Life. Some I did by myself, but most of them were with friends in the class. My experiences were different each time and depended on when and what time of day it was I went in. It seemed that on weeknights in the evenings a lot of people hung around orientation island public. I went there as I wrote this on Sunday and there was a smaller crowd. Most people were chatting and not talking. This was the most interesting place for me. I loved to just hang out and listen to what others were talking about. I realized on Sunday that many of them are from Europe. They just hang out and talk about things that don’t matter.

One evening my friends and I went to a dance club and learned new dances. This was really fun and I had a great time watching and learning. The music was good and we all had fun. I then transported to Anteater Island where I wouldn’t stop dancing. I had told my avatar to stop before we left the dance club, but to no avail. It was pretty funny. Even after transporting to Virtual Hallucinations I was still dancing. Everyone was cracking up. My avatar on my screen was not dancing, however on other people’s computer I was. Must have been a glitch.

I enjoyed Second Life and everywhere I went. I especially enjoyed anteater island where we played laser tag, I went through a maze, and had the option of going up to a learning center of some sort.

We also went to Virtual Hallucinations. That was a trip! It is a place where you can see what it is like to be schizophrenic. There are voices in there that tell you what a terrible person you are and how you are dying. There was a gun on the table that said to kill all the police. This is supposedly what schizophrenics hear inside their heads. What a drag.

I also went to an amusement park and rode some rides. That was fun but was hoping to get on a roller coaster. I think you might have to pay for that kind of thing.

I could see that this would be really fun for online learning. I was doing a report about nanotechnology and found nanotechnology island on Second Life. I didn’t know how to fly and work my avatar yet, so I didn’t get much out of it, but could totally see the potential for education. What fun this would be to learn from home on Second Life. It is interactive and allows you to do what you want when you want. I love it!

I also noticed that it takes a while to get comfortable moving around, flying and just getting to know how to make your avatar move. By watching what everyone was doing at orientation island public it makes one realize how many ways one can make their avatar gesture or sit. Many sit atop a fence or sign and swing their leg. I don’t know how this is done, but I am sure one day I will learn.

This is one place I probably will revisit when we are done with class. People watching alone is fun. And all the costumes….bizzare!

Genome and Social Networking

So for this blog I decided to look for something new in social networking. What I found was a company from Mountain View, Ca called 23andMe that offers people comparisons of their DNA to others. They call it a personal genomics service.

This goes a little beyond social networking, but is kinda cool. You could compare your DNA with, say, your best friends’ or even someone famous. You could potentially find relatives out there you never knew existed. A member of 23andMe’s scientific advisory board, George Church, says “The idea has precedence in PatientsLikeMe, people who have been enabled to find one another by their disease. Here, people can find each other by their alleles (or genetic variations)(Singer).”

I didn’t realize it before, but I guess there are several other sites out there already that offer this service. This is just a new one coming out soon.

So the idea is you can pay $999 for a kit, send in a sample of your spit, and then receive around “600,000 genetic variations linked to disease and other factors, such as ancestry, height, and color (Singer).”

The main purpose of the site is to eventually get enough people to create a database that is big enough to “reveal scientifically and medically relevant information about its users (Singer).”

This is way out of my league money wise, but I could see the benefits of the site and their potential. It would be easier than doing genealogy that takes forever and a day on some ancestors. It would be especially handy when your gene line breaks and you can’t trace your family back any longer, which happened to my grandmother when she did ours. Also, it might be beneficial for the entire family if they all threw in some money so one person didn’t have to foot the bill, but then who’s spit would be turned in?

Kinda cool. Here’s the link if you want to check it out and read more about the idea:

Social Networking hits the Genome

Second Life Experience

Last week my friend Lauren and I got on Second Life. It was pretty much my second time and Lauren had been on a long time ago. We were in two different locations when we started. I was placed on a learning island and could not seem to get off. I changed my appearance and walked around a little trying to learn new things I wasn’t able to do in the past. Finally I learned how to get to another learning island through our teacher’s help. Lauren landed there as well. I found my teacher, chatted with him and then started exploring this better island than what I was on (apparently there are several learning islands and one is placed randomly on one of these when first entering Second Life).

Lauren and I eventually hooked up. We had so much fun learning how to move certain ways and how to express ourselves. We were sitting across from one another and even did a dance together on the count of three. I learned how to sit down, how to talk via the talk button so Lauren could actually hear me and I her, how to fly, and many other things as well.

We had so much fun. We both were supposed to meet my husband after class for drinks and we ended up being late. We stayed about fifteen minutes past our regular time that we get out because we had so much fun. Class usually gets out way earlier than that.

I learned many new things there and look forward to learning even more this week when we try it again. I know it is not a game, but it feels like it in that if I ever had to learn new things or take a class in Second Life, I would absolutely love it. It does take some time to feel comfortable walking and doing things, but it is just too much fun and can’t wait to do it again. I find that it could become somewhat addictive.

Online Gaming offers Social Networking positives

I was searching for new social networking tools when I came across this article titled “Online games meet social networking tools” from a USA Today online article written around 5 months ago. What I liked about it was that a 41-year old lady used the Internet to play a game called Kaneva (never heard of it before) and loves it for socializing. It sounds similar to Second Life (even though it’s not a game) in that she runs a virtual nightclub and hosts parties in the game. She says “it helps her interact with people, not provide escape from them as traditional games often do (Slagle).”

This struck me as a pleasant difference than what we usually hear about how gaming keeping us from socializing with people because it isn’t face to face. Because a lot of people play these types of games instead of watching television or using other media, the people who partake in this type of activity could be considered to be socializing more than they would otherwise.

I had never thought of socializing like this before. One could say they were socializing when playing online games like WOW or other similar games because they are chatting with each other and actually socializing, even though it might be about the game itself. These people are doing more socializing than I am when watching television in the evening, right?

There is always a lot of negative talk about how online gaming keeps people from actually socializing. For once they talk about how we would not be socializing regularly anyway, so evening online gaming is a good way to socialize. I don't know, I just feel they are absolutely right, at least for me. It doesn't make me not want to socialize at all. I am a social butterfly in real life. Online gaming is fairly new to me and I don't do much of it, but not because I don't want to; because I haven't had time since going to college. I am looking forward to doing more of this type of thing after I graduate.

I like this different take on gaming. It’s nice to hear something positive come out of it.

Here is the link if you want to check out the article:

Online games meet social networking tools

YouTube Proposal

I could see YouTube being used for promotional benefits for myself after I graduate. It would be a video of my resume, basically. I could videotape myself talking about my skills, my degree, my interests in both a career and hobbies, and my volunteer work I have done in the past.

I could then put it up on my website and share with potential employers as well as family and friends. With everyone having access to it, it may help me get a job quicker. This also would be another resource I would have for employers to get to know me better.

I haven’t seen any other promotional student-type YouTube videos. Even when I ran a search, I didn’t see any that were of students promoting themselves. It may be an untapped area that has potential.

I think it would be fairly simple to produce. I could set up a tripod and videotape the whole thing by myself, or have one of my family members or friends videotape it for me. I might play some light background music to jazz it up a bit. When I edit it in imovie, I could cut in scenes such as showing my diploma, have words come in stating what my degree is in, and show pictures of some of my work, my skills, and my hobbies. I would design the script to go along with my pictures and talk in the background explaining what the things they are seeing are.

I think this would be a wonderful asset to my website as well as something fun and creative for my potential employers to watch. It would show them just how innovative I could be. I am not sure if I could produce it before classes are over, but I think I might try to get it done shortly after graduation if not before.