Set April 15 - due April 29

The purpose of this exercise is to show you how easy it is to make a computer-based presentation using one of the most popular programs for this purpose - PowerPoint.

PowerPoint enables you to easily construct a presentation that can be presented directly from a computer (usually a laptop) to the screen. The computer needs to be connected to a video projector and you need to have your presentation on a disk in compatible format. Usually you will load the presentation onto the hard disk for ease of use (sometimes the graphics files become quite large).

1. Practise

(a) Start PowerPoint; create using Auto Content Wizard. Make choices and press Next:

• select presenting a Technical Report
• presentation used for Informal Meetings
• on screen, no handouts
• give a Title, add Your Name and Additional Information
• finish

(b) You will then get a screen with an outline of a 'canned' talk. Read it carefully, it contains some useful tips for making a presentation. You may want to print it out.

(c) Select Format / Apply Design and choose one of the Presentation Displays.

(d) Select View / Slide to see the first slide

(e) Select SlideShow / ViewShow to see the whole show

2. Creating Your Own Presentation

You have an article "The Day the Sea Stood Still" that will form the basis of your PowerPoint Presentation. You should read and understand this article thoroughly because you will need to summarize it in your presentation.

The purpose is to put together a short presentation about the article you have read, using a series of slides (between 10 and 20). You can use the following types of slides:

(a) Title Slide - this is your introduction

(b) Text slides - these allow you to make the points you consider to be the most important in the article. Try not to put large amounts of text on a slide; its is better to use a bullet style, with one point per bullet. Your text can be done in Word and imported into PowerPoint, or you may use PowerPoint directly to enter the text.

(c) Figures and photos - these add interest to your presentation and serve to illustrate points more effectively than straight text

As far as organisation is concerned, you should aim for variety (text slides alternating with figures and photos). You will be talking to the audience as you show the slides. You also need an introduction as to what the article is about, a description of the methods used and a conclusion (or set of conclusions) that arose from this work.

Save your presentation as ass8b.ppt Make one color copy of your slide show for handing in to the instructor.

The following figures are available for downloading to your working directory from the Course WebSite. They can be put into a slide with Insert / Picture command:

End of Assignment 8.