For this assignment you'll create an original PowerPoint presentation. You will ONLY create it, you will not have to present it (e.g., in class). The PowerPoint presentation should not be based off a presentation that you have done in the past. You may though, for example, create a presentation based off of a written report you have done in the past.
This homework is due on April 5th (any time, just so long as it is before 11:59PM aka 23:59).
Regardless of what you choose to cover in your created PowerPoint presentation, it should be basically appropriate for a college level class (e.g., no sexually explicit photos or hyper-violent images unless justified for a good reason). Controversial topics are quite acceptable. The presentation should be complete, as IF you were going to use it in a real class. For example, it should have a title slide and a conclusion/thank you slide.
If you can't decide on a topic, you can contact me for ideas. Some possible ideas include:
I do not care if your presentation merely copies information from another site. I don't expect you to do research as I'm only concerned in you showing that you know how to effectively use PowerPoint for a certain purpose. Each presentation's very last slide should be a very simple citations slide that says where the information/numbers/photos were obtained (e.g., links to Wikipedia articles, a line saying that you learned about it in some class, etc). An acceptable citation slide might merely have links to various web sites.
I realize that typically presentations rely very heavily on the presenter explaining the slides. Therefore, I don't expect the slides to have full sentences or to fully explain things. In fact, in my opinion, a real/quality presentation will never have full sentences (unless it's, for example, quoting something) nor will it fully explain things, as that is the presenter's job. However, your presentation should be more-or-less understandable even if you are not there to explain each slide. For example, captions when appropriate, should be used and titles on each slide should explain things briefly.
Your presentation (.pptx) will be graded based on the following criteria (110 points total). I expect most submissions will require at least 10 slides to meet all conditions.
| Criteria | Description | Point Value |
|---|---|---|
| Theme | Is the presentation's theme interesting/non-boring yet also not distracting? Do NOT use a default PowerPoint theme. You must modify it at least somewhat to make your theme original (e.g., change the color theme and perhaps fonts). You might consider using some color theory to make your presentation look nice. | 20 |
| SmartArt | Does the presentation use 2 pieces of SmartArt in an effective way? | 10 |
| Chart | Does the presentation include a graph which helps explain things? | 10 |
| Explanation Through Animation | Does the presentation help explain something by using animation? Some custom animation and motion paths will be useful here. | 20 |
| Discussion Animation | At least one slide should use animated bullet points so that the bullet points are revealed as they are discussed. | 10 |
| Presentation Variety | The presentation should use at least 3 kinds of slide layouts (e.g., title, title & content, content with caption) to provide variety. These should be used appropriately. | 15 |
| Coherency | Is each slide of the presentation part of a bigger whole? When I read through the presentation, it should make sense and develop an idea or explain something. Proper spelling & grammar are important here. | 15 |
| Citation Slide | The very last slide should just include links and information on where you obtained the information used in your presentation. | 10 |
Although it is not an explicit criteria listed above, I do expect a kind of "Thank you!" slide.
Bonus: Animations are nice, but sometimes you want to be more flexible in how things appear. For example, if asking the audience to participate, you don't know which answer they may at first give. If you incorporate triggers (e.g., mouse clicks) into your presentation, a few bonus points are achievable (depending on how complicated and/or useful and/or well-integrated-into-the-presentation the triggers are). Make sure that you tell me how to use the triggers and on which slide they appear on. You could for example include a simple instruction slide at the beginning. This instruction slide won't be considered part of the presentation. You may want to explain why the triggers improve your presentation. See this page for a simple example of triggers.
As always, presentations may be submitted late, at a penalty of 10% per day late, up to 5 days late.