Power Point: Killer Reasources for your Business English Classroom
Power Point is one of the most common business communication tools in use today. 90% of my clients use it at least once a week, and I bet many of your Business English students do too.
If you’re interested in doing some classwork around Power Point, I would like to share some links with you that you may find helpful. (These articles would work best for intermediate to advanced level classes.)
Cliff Atkinson has a wonderful article bank around developing strong powerpoint presentations. Take special note of the Science of PowerPoint Overload article, it has some very interesting data.
sociable media // articles by Cliff Atkinson
The 10/20/30 Rule of Poweroint - by Guy Kawasaki
This one has become standard reading material when I do this kind of work - it’s simple, short, and very easy to explain.
Really Bad Power Point - by Seth Godin
My growing collection of links on delicious:
http://del.icio.us/aaronN/powerpoint (Feel free to post links to me!)
What you could do with this:
1. Read the stuff before. Lots! Become familliar with the ideas and concepts. Realize that there could be some flexibility with the "rules"
2. Ask your students to present their stuff to you as they normally would - take mental and paper notes: How do they compare with what you’re seeing from the above links?
3. Print off a few articles, I usually start with Kawasaki because it’s pretty simple, easy to understand…and short. Make enough copies for everyone in your class (make sure you include the link and credit) and read through it a few times together.
4. If you have access to Youtube, hunt around for some presenters who follow these rules like Steve Jobs or Seth Godin. (Kawasaki has some stuff on his blog ) Can you show your class some examples of the new style? (My clients have LOVED this.)
5. Do a make over on your student’s presentations - in English of course.
6. Flickr’s creative commons photos can make great visuals - and you should check out this great tool: flickrstorm (tip: use the advanced search option to look for creative commons copyrighted stuff)
Hope this helps you do some powerful Power Point work in class. How have you approached this topic?
Photo Credit:
Blogging 101 by Justin Russell
Thanks. The Kawasaki and Seth Godin articles were brilliant. There’s a lot about the world of marketing that is completely irrelevant to schools and teaching, but these two articles hold some great lessons for me (a teacher).
And here’s one for you: tho it’s 2 years old it’s a fun tour de force - Dick Hardt, OSCON 2005 Keynote. Hold onto yer hats!
Comment by Marco Polo — May 16, 2007 @ 8:30 am