Today you will build the slides for your project talk.
A slide should help your audience follow what you say, not say everything for you. By the end of this lesson you will have a short deck, which means a set of slides, with speaker notes and a credits slide. You will save it the class way, in the place your teacher has set up.
An audience cannot read a crowded slide and listen at the same time. So keep to these four rules:
- One idea per slide, with a short heading
- A few words or one picture, not a whole speech
- Speaker notes hold what you plan to say, and only you see them
- A credits slide at the end, which lists what you borrowed from other people
You will build a practice deck with these rules first, and then you can use them on your Student Project slides.
Follow the step-by-step activity below on your device. It has one list for PowerPoint and one for Google Slides, so follow the list for your app. Have your school Microsoft or Google sign-in ready.
Build a practice deck with a title slide, one idea slide and a credits slide. Then add speaker notes and check the deck in presenter view, which shows you your notes while the audience sees only the slide.
When you finish, save the deck the class way.
If you have Student Project material, open that deck now and use the same rules. If not, finish the practice deck you built.
Your deck should have:
- One idea per slide, with a short heading and a few words or one picture.
- Speaker notes with what you will say.
- A credits slide, from your research log or practice sources.
Then do the cut test. For each slide except the credits slide, ask whether it helps your audience follow your talk. If it does not, cut it.
The deck is short, has notes and a credits slide, and is saved the class way. If you only finish the practice deck today, use the same rules on your Student Project slides for homework.
Your slides are not the presentation, because the presentation is you speaking. The slides help your audience keep track of where you are. Your full wording goes in the speaker notes, not on the screen, so people listen instead of reading. The cut test matters because every slide should be there for a reason. Your credits slide is part of being honest about your work.
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