Effective Presentations
for Non-Trainers (Mock-up)
Summary | Objectives | Reflection | Links to Design Docs
Summary of Project and Key Outcomes
This project was designed to fulfill both a business need and an educational requirement. I’ll focus more on the business need. At my company, there is a need for employees to make better presentations. Weekly staff meetings, quarterly team conferences and VP presentations all require participants to have proper presentation skills. Furthermore, the reputation of the company is put on the line during the annual Team Summit, in which each department of the company presents to retailers from around the country. By teaching employees how to both create and deliver an effective presentation, the company builds its bench strength and increases its credibility to outside vendors and customers alike.
The current presentations course was designed for trainers, not lay people; yet all employees are eligible to take the existing class. After observing different classes and gaining feedback from both participants and trainers, I determined that a redesign was necessary – we needed a class where employees could learn the ins-and-outs of creating and giving a good presentation. I decided a blended learning approach was best. Employees could log in to the system and take the “creation” portion of the course online. During the course, they will learn how to work through a process to write an effective presentation – from brainstorming to multimedia. Along the way, they will follow the story Justin, an employee who has been asked to give a presentation.
The online course deals with writing the presentation, and also offers tips and suggestions on delivering the presentation – conquering fear, finding a personal style, etc. Following the online portion, participants will enroll in a classroom session in which they actually deliver the presentation they created during the online class. Following the presentation, they will receive feedback from both the trainer and fellow classmates.
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Objectives
The objectives for this course are as follows:
- To explain the importance of good presentation skills in the business environment.
- To identify and explain the steps in creating an effective presentation, including the kind of presentation being given, the introduction, content, transitions and closing.
- To recognize when the use of multimedia (including PowerPoint) is or is not appropriate for your presentation.
- To identify and implement methods for creating a public speaking style, including overcoming fear, building credibility, handling Q&A sessions, and the use of humor.
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Reflection
This experience taught me a lot about the importance of planning ahead. I had already started preliminary development of this course at work prior to taking this class, and I had already decided to make it a blended learning course. However, I was NOT going to have to do the multimedia development for it. Rather, I would create the course in PowerPoint, complete with animations and scripting, for later import to Articulate. The preliminary layout in PowerPoint format has been an extremely effective and efficient way to develop an online course and I plan to use it for all future online courses. It helps me visualize the flow of the course more effectively, and also helps translate the look and feel of the course to stakeholders who may not have multimedia or instructional design backgrounds.
When I decided to use the course for my assignment in this class, I knew that most of the multimedia work I did for the class would never be seen by the learning audience for the final course. I used this experience as a way to gain exposure and familiarity with multimedia tools used by the eLearning team at my company. No, I am NOT an expert in Flash, Captivate or Articulate; however, I did gain insight into the programs’ uses, capabilities, and the obstacles facing developers. This will certainly help me communicate with our developers more effectively, as well as be a more successful liaison between the eLearning team and my supervisors. I have better understanding of how difficult certain changes can be to make later on in a project, and will be able to identify possible problem points earlier in the development process, thereby alerting the multimedia developers sooner rather than later.
The usability testing with a rapid prototype is also new to me. I didn’t think it would be useful for people to view a PowerPoint to test a multimedia web site, but their comments helped me evaluate the course. Based on their feedback, and the feedback of others at work, I have decided to make several changes when I create the course for use at my company. I’ve decided to change the color palette (this one is a little too distracting), and to increase the level of interaction I will be adding threaded discussions in our LMS forums at periodic intervals. The learners will post their progress at different stages so the trainer can give feedback, as well as give the participants a chance to get to know one another before giving their presentation in the classroom setting. I am very excited to see how the final version of this course turns out, and I think it will be a powerful combination of multimedia, forums and classroom interaction.
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Links to Design Docs
Front End Analysis
Formative Evaluation
Summative Evaluation
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© 2005-2006 Mary Faulkner. Design inspired by Andreas Viklund.
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