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Criteria for quality PowerPoint slides:design, lay out and format.

2. Technical criteria for quality PowerPoint slides

technical criteria iconHow should my PowerPoint slides look like?

Your slides are to support learning, the first thing is to ensure that the slides you intend to use are communicating and not blocking communication. Your slides are to be of high quality. Copying a long text on a slide – is a no go! Numerous web pages give tips and hints.

Keep in mind:

  • most of the information you find on the web is about presentations, some person presenting to an audience, and NOT about using PowerPoint slides in a learning session to enhance learning. So be careful about what information you find – what might be good practice when you present during a conference might be bad practice when facilitating learning using PP-slides as a learning resource.
  • there are different views on what makes a quality slide you can use in facilitation of learning. E.g. use of bullets is condemned by some authors, others recommend use – but limited number per slide and appearing one by one (using animation); some say minimum font size 24 points, other set the minimum at 28 points.

Read the following resources and open a word document and make notes highlighting what you think are the most important design tips. (You will share this document later in the week):