Presentations: Love Them or Hate Them, Here are Some Tips
Wednesday, December 2, 2009 by Mike Bertolino 
Fickr User: vancouverfilmschoolIt's getting to be that time of year again. I am talking about presentations. Potentially the most awkward part of the college experience, groups presentations have all the makings for disaster on a number of fronts.
Know How You Are Being Graded
Before you do any work on the project, ask your teacher if the members of your group are being graded individually or if your group is being evaluated as a whole. If you are being graded as a whole, it's appropriate to ask if there is going to be any peer evaluation involved. After all, if someone craps the bed on the project, it'll reflect harshly on you.
Know How Your Slideshow Will Get On the Screen
Obviously, through a computer unless you're going old school with an overhead projecter. The room you're in might already have a computer in it. If that's the case then you're in the clear. But, if there isn't you could use your own laptop. A few days before you present, check the connection in the room. Is it DVI or VGA or some other display connection that you don't have. In this case you might have to go to another option. Your professor may bring a laptop to class everyday to make presentations on themselves and hopefully they are generous enough to let you use it. In the case where none of the above is feasible, check in your library or computing center, they should have computers to rent for a class period. If you're Uni is smart they should have the same connections as each of the room does.
Don't Leave Your Slideshow
It's lame when I'm watching a presentation and there's a link to a YouTube video that may or may not load. Or there's an MP3 that needs to be played in Windows Media Player. Number one, I don't need to see what your wallpaper is or who you're buddies with on AIM. The technology to bring multimedia from outside of your presentation, in is right beneath your finger tips.
For videos that are on the internet, all you need is the two video extraction tools mentioned in this Lifehacker post, Download Embbeded and Google Video Downloader. Once you have this media on your harddrive it's easy to put it in your slideshow. In Powerpoint just go into the Format section of the menu bar and click slide layout. There should be an option for multimedia as well as pictures and other things.
Long story short, just try to be as professional as possible, give your professor as many reasons as possible to give you an A. For instance, I moved my teacher to tears yesterday. I don't know why, but it'll help me in the long run.
How do you feel about presentations? Comment below to share!
Reader Comments (3)
On top of needing to bring our own laptop, we had to rent a projector from the multimedia department because our classroom didn't have one.
Other than that, have your slide show on at least 2 different usb sticks in case one flukes, and if you are using somebody else's computer to present, make sure to have your show saved in the 2003 format as well as 2007 because some computers still don't have 2007.
I've also been told that its better to be a little short on length that to go way over, especially if your professor is going to cut you off if you go over by 5 min or whatever, because then you will not even have gotten your point across.
That's really helpful thank you very much,
but could you please make a post about how to make the presentation attractive, as the construction of the presentation in a simple way?
thanks a lot.
[Just a few corrections to make this great site even better :) ]
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Find: laptop to class everyday to make
Replace: laptop to class every day to make
Find: none of the above is feasible
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Find: If you're Uni is smart
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Find: The technology to bring multimedia from outside of your presentation, in is right
Replace: The technology to bring multimedia in from outside of your presentation is right
Find: Download Embbeded
Replace: Download Embedded