Keynote Presentation Number 4: Real World Presentations

Now you are ready to enter the real world of creating presentations. For this final project, you are to contact one of your teachers and create a presentation for your teacher that he or she can use in the classroom. Think of it this way: You've just been hired to take a lesson and make it snazzy by using all that you've learned so far in this course (photoshop, flash, keynote). You can incorporate audio, video, photography---anything you think will make your teacher's lesson more interesting.

Your first step is to think about your teachers and the lessons they have been giving you. There's a good chance that they might not know as much about computers as you do. Keep that part to yourself, but use what you know to make one of their lessons more interesting to their students. You will need to choose one particular lesson from one teacher. Your job is to take what the teacher is currently using, and improve it.

Important things to consider:

1. What is the goal of the lesson? What should a student know and be able to do by the end of the lesson? Always keep this in mind as you design the presentation.

2. Does the lesson require animation? Is there a concept in the lesson that would make more sense to student if it were presented as an animation? For example, if you were creating a presentation about how cells divide, wouldn't it make more sense to show cells splitting into two (which you could easily do with Flash) rather than having still photographs?

3. What photos will you need? What colors should you use, fonts? Will you need audio or video?

Steps to carrying out this assignment

1. Talk to your teachers and tell them about this project. See if they are interested. They will be happy (they might even give you extra credit). Tell your teacher that you want to make them a super lesson using what you have learned in Keynote/PowerPoint. When you find a teacher to work with, ask the teacher for a copy of the lesson they have been using. Talk to him or her about how they would like it to look. Pretend you are a professional presentation designer and the teacher is your client.

2. Bring the materials back with you to class and start working on a preliminary lesson using Keynote, Flash, Photoshop and whatever else you need. I will help you and you may work on a small team of up to three people.

3. After you think you have something that looks real good, test it out on someone in the class. Talk it over and make sure it really works to meet the original goal of the lesson. Let me take a look at it.

4. Copy it to a thumb drive or burn it to a CD and take to the teacher for approval. If the teacher is satisfied, great. If not, bring it back to class and we'll continue working on it till the teacher is happy with it.

5. Your final step is to present your completed project to class next week on Thursday the 8th of March.