When the new term begins, we often tend to get some new ideas on how to make our school activities such as academic activity or administrative activity go better and better. Here I am going to tell you something which can improve your school activities like training, teaching, conference, speech, school ceremony, etc with PowerPoint and DVD player.

Love it or not, Microsoft PowerPoint is widely accepted and used, epically in school. We all know that PowerPoint can only be played on computer with MS PowerPoint installed. But things have been changed all the time, PowerPoint is such a wonderful presentation tool, we are always expecting more. For example, when we made some excellent slides, we often want to share or enjoy the information that contains in the slides with others, and sometimes, we must tell someone something, like training, speech…school requires more. But if you are skilled in PowerPoint, you know it’s often not very convenient to show your PowerPoint Presentations, there must be a computer with MS software installed.

We want to find an easy and convenient way to Bridging the gap between the presenters and the viewers!

Ok, then why not play your PowerPoint presentations on TV with DVD player, the cheapest DVD player costs only $20, maybe less than that!

First, let’s have a discussion on what we will benefit if we play PowerPoint presentations with DVD player.

DVD player is cheap, but it’s not that easy, I am sure you care more about how to show your presentation in an efficient and effective way! We can take some examples to make this clear.

Training:

At the beginning of each term, school administration department need to arrange training for new teachers, sometimes including old staffs, it’s wonderful to show training courses with PPT, but often need to prepare too many things. How about DVD presentation, you only need a DVD player which cost $20, then you can held your training anywhere with a TV, of course, there are almost one TV in each class room, and more than one set in the hall. Another reason is that school often different from other organizations, maybe the whole training need no instructor, school only want to show PowerPoint to teachers and let they learn themselves, Play PowerPoint presentations on TV with DVD player will be the best choice, school can also burn PowerPoint presentations about the training to DVD and give the DVD Disc directly to teachers, so they can learn at home!

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Does School need AD? Are you kidding? The answer is yes! Every school want to be more famous, set up a good reputation both in parents and society! They also need to publicize their newest policies so that more students will enroll, and positively apply for expenditure from the government. So AD is important to school, at the beginning of each term, it’s very important to make a Presentation about school, with pictures and audio insert, then present to places (such as spot for enrolling) which will let parents of the students who often come to school at this time know something about the school. It is wisdom to burn your PowerPoint presentations to DVD disco and play on TV which we call it DVD Presentation! The school can do the same thing when any other organizations or individuals come to have a visit, besides, they also can take their DVD presentations to other school or use in any other activities(such as School Ceremony)! The most advantage of the DVD presentation is that the presentation can play itself and very convenient for delivering. In my opinion, each school should make a completely DVD presentation disc just like each school have a website. In a word, improve the quality of AD to make school famous with lowest cost!

Teaching and Academic activity:

It’s a fact that more and more teachers are tending to use PowerPoint in the class to make their courses more attractive, the same thing happened in Academic activities. As a teacher, are you tried of open the computer and click the PowerPoint Program to show your presentation once and once again, why not sit down with your students and watch your excellent PowerPoint slides on TV, just like watch Spider Man or Harry Potter?you can also explain your slides while it’s playing with no need to click your computer, everything is your hand with a DVD remote controller! During Academic activities like Speech, Proseminar, we have the same application! Maybe more than that, that’s your problem, I am sure you have more imaginations.

Here I only list a few of the applications in school, there are more than that, and you’d better try yourself! Now I’m going introduce the tool which will help you burn your PowerPoint to DVD/Mini DVD.

A $99.95 product called Wondershare DVD Presenter enables you to burn PowerPoint presentation to DVD/Mini DVD, or save it as DVD quality video formats (MPEG). You won’t get bothered with the 3-Click simplicity. With this tool, you can make a DVD copy for the PowerPoint slides with DVD menus, keeping the exact timings, transitions, sound and movies embedded, all in sync with the presentation.

It’s better for you to learn more about the product to have a better understand (http://www.sameshow.com/powerpoint-to-dvd.html)if you want to work in an efficient and effective way.

Through my many years teaching voice and presentation skills, I have found that those who experience truly debilitating, gut-wrenching fear of public speaking have had a bad experience sometime during their elementary or even middle school years when they’ve been required to stand and speak.   And while that one event may not affect every child the same way, for some the damage can be traumatic.

Please understand that I am not talking about the usual nervousness experienced by most of us making a presentation or giving a speech.  That nervousness is good.  It is beneficial:   that extra spurt of adrenaline can help make your delivery exhilarating.  In my business, I don’t advocate the elimination of nervousness; instead, I teach people how to control it, allowing it to work for them, not against them.

Here, however, I am talking about a fear of public speaking that is extreme and is a result of an embarrassing or humiliating experience during childhood that the individual cannot forget.  By the way, those who tell me that they don’t remember such an event have often repressed that memory, hoping to never think about it again because it is too painful.

Public speaking is tough without a doubt.  Having children in their elementary years stand up and speak to a group of their peers is tougher.  All it takes is one mispronunciation of a word, one lapse of memory, one embarrassing faux pas, one humiliating remark from another student or from the teacher, and that child will never want to stand and speak again.  Being laughed at by one’s classmates is agonizing.

Obviously, I am not an advocate of public speaking in elementary school.  I think it is a mistake and I don’t believe we need to place our children in that scenario at that tender age.  In today’s schools where kids are meaner and less disciplined than they’ve ever been, we are just adding fuel to the fire.  Certainly not every child will have a bad experience; but, is it worth it for those children who will suffer?  [I am not talking about class plays which I think are a positive experience because they involve group participation.  With the play, the child is not being singled out and has the entire class as support.]

One of my clients, a psychiatrist from Toronto whose specialty was working with severely abused adults, was being asked to speak at various symposiums and conventions throughout Canada and the United States.  She came to me because of her inability to get up on that stage.  Upon talking to her, I discovered that at the age of 7, she and her cousin had performed a song in front of a group of people.  When it was over, her father told her that she was terrible.  Admittedly, Frances had lived through years of abuse by her father but she was an amazingly resilient woman and she was confident that it was that particular event that caused her to avoid public attention ever again.

While working with Francis I was able to build up her level of confidence because she had a truly magnificent speaking voice.  I tested her and I also knew that she could sing; therefore, I was able to assure her that when she was 7, she probably did sing well and that her father was a stupid and wrong man for treating her the way he did.   (Actually, he died during the time I was working with her and she flew back to Ireland to ‘nail his coffin shut!’)

While you may think Francis’ example is extreme, it really isn’t.  If you knew all the horror stories I’ve heard through the years, you would understand.  In today’s world where growing up is harder than it’s ever been, do we really need to subject our children to an experience that could do irreparable damage to their self-esteem?  Let’s take that one pressure off of them and use other positive means of bolstering their confidence and self-image.

Most roles in business require good presentation skills. Not only is proficient communication essential to convey information, an exciting or entertaining delivery is an integral ingredient for keeping an audience’s attention and ultimately getting the response you want. A successful presentation will have energy from beginning to end, engage the audience, use dynamic body language and include innovative and creative ways of bringing facts to life and making them memorable. All the while, ‘death by PowerPoint’ should be avoided at all costs. Competent presentation skills can be used in many aspects of working life, from winning pitches, to getting a pay raise. Getting your messages across with impact will give you the best possible results.

Preparation is synonymous with success. A poorly planned presentation, lecture or pitch will leave you nervous, easily distracted and vulnerable to a feisty audience if you haven’t got your facts straight. You will need to identify your target audience, pin-point the purpose of the delivery, and be clear about what your key messages are. After that you need plenty of practice to ensure you stay within the allotted time, get over any potential tongue twisters and fine tune the content. There are so many tangents that an inadequately planned presentation can go down; the more you rehearse, the more of these winding paths you will discover, along with dead-end statements that you can choose to avoid. More importantly you can ensure you can bring your content to life and make if highly impactful. If you can practise in front of someone who will give you feedback, or video yourself, so that you can see how you come across, that will be highly beneficial. Ideally, for a big and important presentation you might like to have some individual presentation skills training or coaching for some expert and tailored advice.

First of all it’s necessary to understand your audience. Knowing who the audience are their roles, objectives and interests should inform the way you plan and deliver a presentation. Right from the start, all your key messages should you be tailored to meet your objectives and theirs. Make sure that all references, anecdotes and metaphors relate to the topical issues and interests of your audience, ensuring sure that you keep it relevant to the ideas under discussion.

It’s very important to open your presentation with a bang. It’s far easier to present to an audience who’s attention you’ve grabbed and which is engaged. There are several ways to do this: you might like to start with a striking or surprising fact, ask them a question, introduce an analogy or crack a joke. These are just a few ideas – there are many more ways to open with impact.

Using PowerPoint, or another form of media display can bring a presentation to life, clarify points and help them stick in people’s minds. However, it can also have the opposite effect, so it’s crucial to get it right. Any slides used in a presentation should be kept to a minimum and include only the key points. As a guide, you should include no more than 6 words per line and 6 lines per slide. This keeps the slides clear and easy to read and avoids overload. It can also be helpful to reveal each point separately as you talk about it, to avoid the audience jumping ahead and not concentrating on what you’re saying. If you do this though, ensure your reveals are consistent and that they’re not whizzing in from all sides with crazy sound effects for each – this will just distract your audience and make you look amateur. Instead, it should be the words you use, the anecdotes and stories you tell and the relevant imagery you use that engage, amuse and inspire the audience.

Pictures, diagrams and graphs can help bring facts and figures to life and help them stick in people’s minds. A carefully chosen image or chart can drive a point home far more successfully than a whole slide of words. Sometimes it can also be useful to use video clips to change the pace and add interest. They should be kept short though, to avoid the audience’s attention drifting.

Finally, be prepared for questions. A well planned and informative speech will inspire listeners to respond with ideas you may not have considered, or inadvertently overlooked in research. It’s a good idea to flag up from the beginning when you will be responding to questions, to avoid disruptive questions throughout. Once again, knowing the topic inside out will prepare you for questions from any angle. Give yourself time to respond, repeat the question back for the audience, try not to waffle when you reply and don’t get emotional! If you don’t know the answer, it’s ok to admit that, but tell them you’ll find out and get back to them. Or give them an answer to the best of your ability, but explain that you’re not 100% sure.

There are many more tips to creating the perfect presentation, but these should get you started and help you to make your presentation clear, impressive and engaging. Presentation skills training will take you through many areas of tips and advice, give you the opportunity to practise and offer personalised feedback and advice.