Found this post from The Rapid eLearning Blog …
Most PowerPoint templates are designed for standard bullet point presentations. They’re not really designed for elearning courses.
… Which hasn’t stopped folks I know from using those bullet-point-intended templates … and it seems to me that they’ll find the gaudiest color scheme or the blandest – no middle ground … and because PowerPoint is intended to be used with bullet points … well … that’s what you get onscreen … the wall of text (that is usually accompanied by audio reading all of that text for you – how thoughtful).
The article is well worth reading … the gist being that you shouldn’t use a PowerPoint template alone because it is not designed for eLearning … so, you create a template for yourself – he shows you how.
And gives some good pointers.
Focus on white space
Make a few variations of the template
Find layout and color scheme ideas from other sources
Use graphics tools to help you build your templates
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You’ll find nice and free templates for your presentation on iSpring Solutions web site
PowerPoint presentations are a reflection of the speaker. If the speaker is boring, then the PowerPoint will be too. Work on enhancing your own communications skills with PowerPoint rather than emphasizing the weak points.
Great points! Our department is working on a huge Rapid eLearning initiative and have been given a bunch of PowerPoint presentations that, ironically, look just like the Before example in the Rapid eLearning Blog article mentioned above. (the “Illuminati” look LOL). Our job is to make them engaging, and make them eLearning.
A tip for those of you who use Articulate Presenter with PowerPoint (this may be limited to the PPT 2003 version, which we have to use at work):
If you have been handed a PowerPoint original that uses a template, instead of using the original, create your own new original – and create master pages. Don’t save as a template.
(PowerPoint templates in our experience cause more problems than they solve… the solution is pretty simple.)
Copy and paste the text out of the original into a plain-text editor, then into your new presentation, and your own format attributes won’t be messed with by those of the old template.