Outstanding question!
If this is from a teacher giving an assignment in a communication
class - please give this teacher an outstanding rating!
The above suggestions are all good, but they stress what you
don't want to do. You might better address this question from the viewpoint
of what you do want to do.
A) what you don't want to do.
I wouldn't say avoid bullets or outline form 100% of the time.
I'd use them about like you do in your normal writing style.
For me that's about 5% of the time.
Avoid irrelevant backgrounds, clip art, transistions, animations, etc.
But if these elements stand on their own (which may rule out
clip art altogether) use them. Don't use a color scheme which reminds you
of a
circus.
B) What do you want to accomplish?
Just some examples:
I've seen one PPT of about 5 slides that was an excellent animated
gretting card. It was just a few photos, about 5 words per slide,
in a large interesting decorative type face, with fade in transistions.
You could imitate a teletype machine pretty easily. Just have all text one
line at a
time wipe in from the left at medium speed. You could probably have it
scroll up
as it goes as well (2002 animations and later). Off white background, black
text.
Well, at least it is unpowerpointish.
You could imitate a student taking notes with the same type of animation.
Some PPT presenters do this but I think it's un-ppt-ish. Yellow background
with
blue lines, coil wire binder on the left, maybe hyperlinked multicolored
tabs on the
right. Just look at your student notebooks and you'll get the idea. Make
sure to
put in a few animated scribbles and erasures or crossouts. I haven't seen a
transition that really looks like somebody flipping a page, but a few
"normal" ppt transitions
come close.
You can do a simple imitation of a computer game. Click this box then
amination A
happens, click the next arrow and amination B happens, click the circle and
bags of
gold rain down. Hard to keep score though and computer game designers have
lots better tools, lots of time, etc.
Make it look like a Jeopary game. Please search for this topic in the
archives.
Yes, I know all these are limited, but they have their place at certain
times and
they are certainly unpowerpointish.
And in any communications form, you must first start with what you want to
accomplish and then figure out how to use the tools at hand to do this.
Next suggestion - do a parody of the usual PowerPoint style and then you'll
know what not to do. Figure out what your teachers usually do in powerpoint
and then parody that - maybe you won't get a good grade, but you'll have
a fun time and learn a lot.
As always,
Pete
