ICT in primary school. Basic mistakes when creating presentations. Alexander Kucheruk destroys myths about presentations and works on mistakes Basic mistakes in presentations

American human rights activist Bryan Stevenson received one million dollars after an 18-minute speech at the TED conference. The money went to a charitable organization. In doing so, Brian relied only on the power of the story and did not use a single slide.

Use presentation slides only when necessary:

  1. If you need to explain something. Take the listener slide by slide from simple to complex.
  2. When you need to enhance the effect. For example, a photograph of a turtle with a plastic bag in its jaw will strengthen a report on endangered species.
  3. If you need to send a presentation by mail. Commercial proposals and investment presentations, made according to all the rules of presentation art, will become a good means of communication.

Mistake 2. Incorrectly defining the target audience

Not knowing the target audience of your presentation is like offering hair removal to a brutal biker. At best, he will laugh, at worst, he may send you to hell. Before you open PowerPoint, write down the answers to the following questions on a piece of paper:

  1. Who is my target audience? What do these people love, what do they dream about, what are they irritated by, what inspires them, what are they proud of, what do they want to know and what do they strive for?
  2. What do I want to get from them?
  3. What should they take away from the presentation? What main idea will they tell their family over dinner that night?

Error 3: The problem in the presentation is not defined

There is a story on the Internet about two sellers. One salesman was sent to Africa and told: “Sell shoes.” A week later he writes: “Take me away from here! Here everyone walks barefoot, no one needs our shoes.” They sent a second, more experienced seller. A week later he wrote: “Send another batch of shoes - everyone walks barefoot here!”

The first seller did not find the problem, while for the second it was obvious. Be sure to think about what problem your presentation will solve. Break it down into facts and figure out how you can strengthen them.

Mistake 4: Lack of Focus

On your target audience sheet, write down the purpose of your presentation. Collect 20 thousand rubles to protect pigeons from harmful old ladies or get 5 million dollars to launch a rocket to Mars. The goal must be clearly stated.

A presentation can only have one purpose.

A simple rule works with slides: “One slide - one thought.” If you feel that a new thought is beginning, go to the next slide.

Mistake 5. Lack of structure

I often come across presentations that lack a clear structure. First they describe the characteristics of the product, then they talk about the advantages and at the end they add the problems that it solves. Although it is much more important to bring problems to the forefront, and only then propose ways to solve them.

Dan Roem's book Talk and Show shows four types of presentations: the sales pitch, the drama, the explainer, and the report. Dan offers a clear structure for each type. All we have to do is select the facts and string them onto this structure.

Commercial offer

Obstacle → solution → new level.

The scorching sun → buyPanama.

Drama

These are most presentations in the style: emotional pit → insight → new level.

I had an accident, realized how much I loved life, made peace with my mother, with whom I had not spoken for five years.

Explanation

Step → step → step → new level.

How to explain to a child what it isshort circuit? There are two wires through which current flows and powers the device (step 1). Ifif the integrity is broken and these wires are connected directly, a short circuit will occur(step 2). The wire will heat up and the device will light up (step 3).

Report

Fact → fact → fact → new level.

In June we earned 10 thousand rubles. This is 10%more than last month. The reason is the opening of a new store. Funding in Augustnot required, the money is there.

Mistake 6: Presentation without a story

You won’t surprise anyone with a beautiful slide design anymore. But an interesting story will help to grab the attention of listeners.

Signs of a good story:

  • presence of a hero;
  • tests;
  • struggle;
  • return to normal life, but with new knowledge;
  • conflict.

December 10, 1996 in the left hemisphere of Jill ( hero of the story) a vessel burst, a cerebral hemorrhage occurred ( trial). Over the course of four hours, the neurophysiologist watched as her brain gradually stopped working. She could not speak, read, write. Miraculously, Jill managed to dial a working phone number and call for help. The brain surgery was successful, but recovery took eight long years ( struggle).

In her talk, Jill talks about the feeling of nirvana that she experienced when the right hemisphere took the leading position. She talks about the conscious choice that each of us can make: to switch between the right and left hemispheres. Jill hopes that her story will be useful not only to those people who suffered ( return to normallife, but with new knowledge).

conflict there is enough in this story too. What is the opposition between the right and left hemispheres worth? The left one analyzes everything, the right one is responsible for creativity. In Jill's story, the right hemisphere becomes dominant. This is what changes her perception of the world.

Think about what story illustrates your idea, find your hero. Let him guide you through the presentation and get your points across.

Mistake 7. Ignorance of the basic principles of information design

How can you ruin a presentation with a clear structure and a perfect story? Sloppy slides. You don't need to be a designer to create dynamic slides. But it doesn’t hurt to know the basic principles:

  1. Maintain a consistent style. One, maximum two fonts. Use colors that go together. You can check it on the Adobe website.
  2. Align. Use special lines - guides that are visible only in editing mode. Think of a newspaper article: straight columns and bright headlines. Follow this style in your presentations.
  3. State the main idea of ​​the slide in the title.
  4. Let the slide breathe. Don't be afraid of empty space and don't try to fill it right away.
  5. Photos are better than any words. If you can use a photograph to illustrate an idea, by all means do so.
  6. Icons and pictograms show ideas better than faceless white men. Can be found.
  7. Use diagrams to illustrate processes and explain complex ideas. This service will help.

There is an excellent book “Design. A book for non-designers by Robin Williams. You won’t become a designer after reading this, but your presentation will look more professional and cohesive.

Mistake 8: Poor preparation

How often have you had to prepare slides the night before a presentation? What kind of rehearsal can we talk about in this case?

Famous speakers spend a lot of time preparing their speech. For example, coach, actor, speaker and author Michael Port spent five months, or almost 400 hours, preparing a 50-minute speech. And before each performance, he never tires of rehearsing and coming up with new variations of the show.

  1. Gather your family and friends and give them a presentation. In addition to the pleasure of communicating with loved ones, you will receive valuable comments on the performance.
  2. Never rehearse a presentation in front of a mirror. You will be distracted by pimples and your facial expression. Go to the park, to the shore of a pond, recite the text of the speech out loud.
  3. And the simplest, but not the easiest thing: start preparing for the presentation in advance.

Mistake 9: Avoiding a presentation out of fear

It's normal to feel nervous before a performance. There are dozens of exercises to combat anxiety: breathing techniques, physical exercises, body contact, detailed study of fears and much more.

The most important thing is to keep trying and move forward.

And if there are rituals that help you personally (a nickel under your heel, a “lucky” tie), feel free to use them. The main thing is to remember that good preparation is 99% of the success of your presentation (see mistake 8).

Error 10. Stopped development

Surprisingly, so many people consider themselves excellent speakers. Day after day they broadcast the same thoughts in the same voice, accompanied by the same gestures.

Meanwhile, life does not stand still, the art of presentations develops and reaches a new level. Programs help create designer slides; the art of storytelling completely changes the perception of listeners.

It is important not to stop developing and continue to look for new sources of inspiration. These books may help you:

Now look at your presentation with a critical eye. What errors do you see? What can be improved to take it to the next level?

On the website “Network of Creative Teachers” I came across an interesting document called “ « . Its author is Ivanova I.A., computer science teacher, secondary school No. 1301 with in-depth study of economics, Moscow

The very fact of trying to teach teachers the general rules of creating presentations is gratifying and respectful. But something in the text caught my attention and made me wary. First of all, the fact that this document pays a lot of attention to little things (like text alignment in diagrams or what should be in the table of contents), but not a word is said about the font size, nor about its “readability”, nor about the selection of colors in general . Obviously, it is assumed that the teacher, having chosen the template and theme offered by Microsoft, will not automatically make common mistakes. Blessed is he who believes...

But today I would like to talk about something else. The central place in this document is occupied by the rules for designing lists.

This is a very important topic, since almost no presentation is complete without lists. What do creative teachers offer us?

The document introduces rules for the design of lists as an imperative:

List elements are separated by semicolons. There must be a period at the end. Example 1. My family:

  • dad;
  • Mother;
  • Brother.
Please note that after the colon, all list elements are written with a lowercase letter! If the list begins immediately, then the first element is written with a capital letter, then - with small letters.

I admit, I was very surprised by such categoricalness. To be honest, I intuitively put a semicolon at the end of the list element myself, but not always. In a public presentation, in which every written word is very significant because there are very few of them, each element stands for a complete thought. It is logical to put a period after it and start each element of the list with a capital letter. Indirect confirmation of this idea is provided by Microsoft Office, which by default automatically replaces the first letter of a list item with a capital one.

Let's see what the rules say about this.

Here, for example, is an excerpt from Lotosh L.S., Candidate of Pedagogical Sciences, philologist, teacher of the Faculty of Pre-University Preparation of the Moscow Federal Law Academy:

Punctuation of lists

Headers of the first and second levels begin with capital letters, and the headings of subsequent levels are from lowercase. This happens because after Roman and Arabic (without brackets) numerals, according to the rules of the Russian language, a dot is placed, and after the dot, as we all remember from elementary school, a new sentence begins, which is written with a capital letter. Arabic numerals with brackets and lowercase letters with brackets are not followed by a period, so the following text begins with a small letter. The last point, by the way, also applies to the dash, since it is difficult to imagine combining a dash with a dot after it.

Please note punctuation at the end headings of the list, as well as at the end of words and phrases in its composition.
If the title suggests subsequent division of the text, then a colon is placed at the end of it, but if there is no subsequent division, a period is placed.

If parts of the list consist of simple phrases or one word, they are separated from each other by commas (see Example 5). If parts of the list are complicated (there are commas inside them), it is better to separate them with a semicolon (see Example 6).

Finally, if parts of the list are separate sentences, they are separated from each other by a period:

Sometimes the list is formatted in such a way that it is preceded by a whole sentence (or several sentences). In this case, the list uses only the so-called “lowest” levels of division (lowercase letters with a bracket or a dash), and dots are not placed at the end of each part of the list, because in this case, the list is a single sentence:

It happens that some parts of the list that are phrases include an independent sentence starting with a capital letter. Regardless of the fact that according to the rules of the Russian language a period must be placed at the end of a sentence, each element of the list will be separated from the next by a semicolon:

You may also be interested in information on the following keywords, which are commonly searched for on my website

The presentation rightfully occupies a prominent place in the arsenal of pedagogical methods of modern teachers: it has long been known that for any person it is easier and more interesting to perceive information visually than to engage in dull cramming of a textbook. This is especially true for younger schoolchildren.

However, today many educational presentations for schools cannot boast of impeccable execution: too often, many gross errors in the composition and design have the opposite effect, causing boredom to students and making it difficult to comprehend the material. Thus, not all teachers understand the need to create a solid multimedia product, turning it into a regular set of pictures and text, only shown on the screen, but in addition to drawings, tables and explanations for them, slides can contain a wide variety of audio and video materials.

The most common mistakes when creating presentations for children and schoolchildren:

  1. Slides overloaded with meaning. Each slide should convey one brief idea to students.
  2. An abundance of text, turning the presentation into an educational text divided into paragraphs. Don't do this. Basic information should be given in the form of diagrams, pictures, video files, be brief and clear. All necessary explanations can be made orally.
  3. Text that blends into the background or, conversely, is too contrasting. You should not use colors that are difficult to distinguish, but you should also not place warm and cold tones side by side, for example, showing blue letters on a pink background.
  4. Errors when choosing a font. It is important that all the information on the slide is clearly readable even from the back of the desk, but you should not turn all the letters into capitals for the sake of this. It is better to use standard fonts, for example, the Arial or Times family, but using the popular Comic Sans MS is not recommended - it is considered bad form.
  5. Excessive number of illustrations on the slide. It's better to display images one at a time rather than trying to fit them all together, sacrificing fine detail. It is clear that large screens require good quality images used in the presentation.
  6. Abuse of animation. Animated effects should follow the logic of the material and not interfere with perception.

The main principle is moderation in everything, be it the amount of text or animated inserts, the size of pictures, the color and type of font, or the duration of video clips. It is important to always keep in mind the audience for whom the work is being done: what is good for a preschooler will not be suitable for a high school student, and vice versa.

Following a few simple rules can significantly improve the quality of presentations, which means achieving greater student involvement, encouraging them to engage in dialogue, and ensuring a deep understanding of the material. For example, on the website pptcloud.ru you can see many examples of such works, as well as download ready-made ones.

  • Error 1. The slide background does not match the theme of the presentation. And we see, for example, a presentation about revolutions in Russia against a background with birch trees and mushrooms.
  • Error 2. The background included in the PowerPoint program was used. Over the many years of the existence of the PowerPoint program, thousands of people have used standard templates, published their presentations online, and shown them at speeches. Listeners are simply tired of these templates.

Solution: It is better to abandon standard templates. You can find a large number of new interesting templates and backgrounds on the Internet (for example, almost a thousand backgrounds are on our website -).

The background image should not contain elements that are inconsistent with the content of the presentation. For the background it is better to use pastel or cool colors (purple, blue, cyan, blue-green, green), you should avoid red and white colors.

  • Error 3. The presentation background is too bright and active. Such a background, firstly, interferes with the perception of information from the slide, and secondly, it tires listeners.

Solution: If there should be a bright picture as the background, then it is better to reduce its brightness. To do this, select a rectangle shape ( InsertFiguresRectangle), cover the entire slide with it and select a white fill for it with a transparency of 50% (a different percentage is possible) and remove the borders ( FormatFill figuresOther colors fills- white color and transparency 50% — OK, Circuit figures- No outline).

The background image will become less active.

Or, when inserting a picture onto a slide, immediately set transparency.

  • Error 4. Using inconsistent colors and not having a consistent slide design style.

In this example, in one presentation, one slide uses large font and left alignment, while the other slide uses small font and justified alignment.

Solution: When designing a section or the entire presentation, you need to stick to one style. The color scheme should contain no more than three primary colors (of course, exceptions are possible): backgroundtitlebasic text. You can change the theme colors like this: DesignColors— you can choose a scheme from the proposed set, or you can set your own colors: Create new colors schemes.

  • http://colorscheme.ru/ - selection of colors using the color wheel and generation of color schemes.

  • http://color.romanuke.com/ - a set of color palettes based on photographs (you can choose shades: warm, cold, pastel and contrasting).

Errors related to text content

  • Error 5. Excess text on a slide, placement of unstructured text on a slide, text taken from the source as is, without author’s processing.

Solution: The text on the slide should be short and succinct, it should not duplicate the speaker’s presentation. The abstract should be placed on the slide.

If your presentation is intended to be used by others, you can include the necessary information in slide notes to help users of the presentation work with it.

  • Error 6. An attempt to place a large amount of information on a slide, more than 90% of the slide space is used.

Solution: leave padding from the edges of the slide to the content (text and pictures). Try to stick to the rule that 20% of the slide should be empty.

To give the slide a finished look, you can use a background frame as a background.

Here the text extends beyond the borders of the frame - it was necessary to reduce the text entry area by moving the resizing marker to the right.

The text is very large, almost running over the frame. Needs to be reduced.

  • Error 7. All text is written in CAPITAL letters. This text is hard to read.

Solution: use traditional writing options, as in your native language: the first letter of the sentence is capital, the rest are lowercase. There is a period at the end of the sentence.

  • Error 8. Using hard-to-read fonts, especially as body text fonts. There is such a concept in layout - readability of fonts. The font should be such that the reader can read the text quickly, without difficulty or discomfort. These are the fonts that are used in books, newspapers, magazines - we are used to them and read them easily. However, there are thousands of fonts with low readability - they are interesting, beautiful, but intended for headings and, most likely, for use in advertising, in design.

Solution: If the goal of the presentation being created is not to produce a “wow” effect, but to provide information, then use only traditional fonts that are familiar to all of us. For text, it is better to use sans-serif fonts (Arial, Tahoma, Verdana, etc.). Please note that serif fonts (Times family and others) are difficult to read from a long distance.

Sans serif font and serif font. Serif font is difficult to read in presentations, but works well for documents

Italics is advisable to use for a small fragment of text that needs to be highlighted, but it is better to highlight individual words and phrases in bold. It is better not to use underlining, since underlined text in presentations is perceived by the user as , that is, it makes it difficult to manage the presentation.

You can use decorative fonts for headings, as long as the text is readable.

The body text font should be smaller than the title font size.

  • Error 9. Extra and missing periods, spaces, parentheses, etc. text writing errors.
  • There is no period at the end of the title.
  • At the end of the sentence there is a period, then one space, then the next sentence.
  • The quotation marks in the text of the presentation must be the same - if you chose Christmas tree quotation marks, then use only them in the presentation (Types of quotation marks: “ ”, “ ”, “ “, „ “).
  • There is no space after the opening bracket or quotation mark, the text goes immediately. There is no space before the closing quotation mark or parenthesis; a quotation mark or parenthesis is placed immediately after the text. After the closing quotation mark or parenthesis, there is a period (if the end of a sentence), a comma or a space, and then the text.
  • There must be one space between all words.
  • After all punctuation marks, there must be a space before the beginning of the next text.
  • Throughout the presentation, words with e should be e or e.
  • Different list markers on different pages.

In the first case, the markers are ticks, in the second case, they are squares.

  • Throughout the presentation, lists must have the same punctuation marks after each bullet point, or no punctuation at all. For example, put a semicolon after each list item, and a period at the end of the list.

In the first case, there is a dot after each list item, in the second case there is not.

  • There is a red line on some slides, but not on others. It is better not to use the red line in the presentation at all.

Same presentation: different font size.
One slide has it, the other doesn't.

Errors related to using images in a presentation

  • Error 10. There is no alignment of shapes, text to the edges of the slide, or to each other. Careless design.

Objects on the slide must be aligned. There is an error on the next slide: identical rectangles have different distances from the edges of the slide and from each other.

Solution: To fix this error, you need to use the align function. Select the desired rectangles (press and hold the CTRL ) FormatAlignAlign to slide(in this case the shapes will be aligned to the borders and center of the slide) or Align selected objects(in this case the objects will be aligned with each other). After selecting the alignment type, you need to set its parameters (left, right, top or bottom, center, distribute horizontally or vertically).

  • Error 11. The same elements on the slide are shifted from slide to slide.

The following example shows two slides that have the same elements: a button to finish working with the presentation, an “Answer” text, and a slide title. You may notice that identical elements are offset and located at different distances from the edges of the slide. This shouldn't happen.

Solution: To avoid this error, you need to create the first slide and place the necessary elements on it. After this you can:

  • copy the slide (if both slides carry the same load, as in the example considered), and then change each new slide, leaving the same elements in their places;
  • or create a second slide, then select the desired object on the first slide, copy it, and then paste it onto the second slide. The object will be inserted at the same distance from the edges of the slide, i.e. there will be no displacement. You need to do the same with other objects.
  • Error 12. Distortion of image proportions. Using images of different styles on one slide (photos and drawings, images with and without frames, with and without backgrounds).

The picture is “flattened”.

Images of different heights. The image on the right has the white frame not removed (you could have chosen white as the presentation background, then the white frame on the picture would not have been visible).

Solution: You need to resize the image by pulling the markers located in the corners of the picture; You cannot resize using the markers on the sides of the image.

  • Error 13. The image frames do not match the theme or style of the presentation.

Solution: A small frame around the image creates a neat effect; the image with a frame has a finished look. But you should not use “mourning” frames, as in the first image on the next slide example. You should also not use image reflection effects, which interfere with the perception of information on the slide.

  • Error 14. The image is “pushed into a corner.”

Solution: Avoid placing the image on the edge of the slide or in the corner. Indent from the edges of the slide to the image (as you would when placing text). If you need to insert an image in the corner of the slide, then it is better to retreat the same distances from the vertical and horizontal edges. Also try not to place the image in the center of the slide if there is text on the slide.

If the image is a portrait of a person, then it is better to position it so that the eye is directed at the text, but not at the edge of the slide. This will give the slide a finished look.

  • Error 15. Placing multiple images on a slide in such a way that they are difficult to see. Placing two or even 10 images on a slide is acceptable if it does not contradict the logic of the presentation: for example, if the images enlarge when clicked, or if they are button images. However, if the image is the main content of the slide, it is the image that is being worked with and it is the image that carries the information load, it should be large.

Solution: If an image is the main content of the slide, insert one image per slide. If you need to use multiple pictures, create multiple slides. Or insert several images onto one slide, but in such a way that when you click on the picture, the image opens in full screen.

Other errors in presentations

  • Error 16. Buttons and hyperlink buttons do not work. Sometimes a situation may arise when, in presentation viewing mode, you cannot use the hyperlink button - it is inactive. This can happen simply due to the carelessness of the presentation author - they forgot to set up the link. But it is also possible that a button with a link (bottom layer) is overlapped by the top layer - another image or text, and therefore does not work. This can be seen when the mouse cursor does not become a hand with a finger (like a hyperlink) in the center of the button, but changes along the edges of the button.

Solution: In the first case, simply check all the links and all the buttons in the presentation. In particularly critical cases, test the presentation on other computers.

To solve the problem with the button being blocked by other objects, just move the interfering object to the background. To do this, right-click on the image and select from the context menu Move back. Now the button will work.

  • Error 17. The sources of the images and texts are not indicated. Using someone else's work and not indicating the author is bad form.

Solution: we have prepared on the topic. More than 80% of authors of materials on the site indicate sources of information incorrectly and are not aware of it.

  • Error 18. Excessive animation, when animation interferes with working with the presentation. When adding animation to your presentation, you need to adhere to the principle of minimalism. Animation should not interfere with reading the text or be colorful.

Solution: Do not choose flickering animation or fast rotation. All this is tiring, irritating and puts a lot of strain on the eyesight and nervous system. There is no need for unnecessary animation. It is better not to accompany the change of slides with sound effects and active animation. You need to think about which effects will appear automatically and which will appear on click. If all the animation happens on click, a lot of time will be spent on it, such a presentation will be annoying.

  • Error 19. Slide transition is not configured correctly, transition by mouse click or keyboard is not disabled. For example, in a presentation game, the user missed the button to show the correct answer and got to the next question, bypassing the game menu. It is not clear to the user where to go next, and sometimes he simply does not understand what happened.

Solution: When creating an interactive presentation that contains , you need to disable click and keyboard transitions between slides. Many simply choose Transitions - Slide Changes and uncheck the box On click. This method allows you to avoid changing slides by clicking, but you still have the ability to scroll through slides using the arrows, space bar on the keyboard, and the mouse wheel.

There is a more reliable way - Automatic presentation presentation. . But when using it, you need to remember that each slide must have a hyperlink button to go to another slide. Otherwise, you can turn off the slide view only by ending the presentation.

We tried to describe the main mistakes in creating presentations and hope that this will help us all avoid them in the future.

What mistakes do you know? You can tell us in the comments to the article.





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