Briefly introduce the topics that will be covered in this lesson so students are aware of the new skills they will learn. Remind students that all the information is available in the book as a reference so they don’t need to commit anything to memory or take notes.
Animation is a great way to spice up a presentation, when used sparingly. Stress to students that it is easy to overdo animation and that it can easily distract the audience from the content. The amount of animation that is appropriate will depend on the type of content and the audience. A presentation of sales figures to a corporate audience may not benefit from more than a little animation, whereas a photo album for friends may receive applause for the interesting effects applied to slides.
Review the 4 types of animations and explain that more than one can be applied to an object or on a slide.
The best way to understand animations is to try them. Have students select an object on a slide and try the different entrance, emphasis and exit effects to see what they look like. Have them think about whether different effects are more suitable for different types of content or different audiences. Have them try the same effect on a text placeholder with multiple bullet points and an image, to see the difference.
While the default option for most animations will work well, students may want to personalize the animation further. The pre-defined effect options are an easy way to do this. Point out that the options vary depending on the effect.
By default, animations are set to start when the mouse is clicked. However, for entrance effects, students may prefer that the animation start as soon as they advance to the slide; either Start With Previous or Start After Previous will achieve this, for the first animation on a slide. Students may also wish to slow the animation down to allow more time for their introduction, or speed it up.
One animation per slide may be enough for many presentations, but if an object has multiple animations applied, students may need to change the order so they play in the correct sequence. Show students how to reorder animations on the slide (pointing out the sequence numbers that appear next to each animated object) and on the animation pane.
For those who want to fine-tune an animation even further, the Timing and Effect options will be useful. Review these options with students, so they are familiar with them, keeping in mind that most students will be satisfied to start with the options available on the Ribbon bar.
Adding sound to an animation can liven up a presentation at key moments, such as at the start of a new section, or after a long series of detailed slides.
This effect is not offered on the Ribbon bar, and may frustrate viewers if the appearance of letters and words is too slow. However, it is an interesting effect, so you might demonstrate it to students.
Once an appealing animation has been created, students may wish to apply it to other objects. The Animation Painter is the perfect tool for this. Show students in particular how to copy an animation to an object on a different slide by selecting that slide in the slide list, then selecting an object on that slide.
Students may decide that an animation isn’t appropriate after all, or may wish to start the process of applying and customizing an animation over again. Demonstrate the various ways of removing an animation.
Students will want to see their animations in action, so demonstrate the Preview button, as well as how to run the slide show to see the full-screen effect. More time will be spent on running slide shows in Lesson 7, but it’s good to demonstrate some of that functionality now.
Action buttons are a great way of navigating to non-sequential slides in a presentation. For example, if you wish to refer back to an earlier slide at some point in the presentation, rather than navigating back through all the intervening slides, you could add an action button to the slide to jump back, and one to jump forward again from the destination slide. Action buttons are also useful for clicking to open a web site, a Word document, a PDF, or any other material you wish to refer to during the presentation.
As with animations, students should consider whether any slide transitions they apply contribute to the presentation, or detract from it. Long or complicated transitions may distract the audience (though they do give the presenter a moment to catch their breath). Have students try the different transitions available, and adjust the timing to see if longer or shorter versions work better. Point out the Apply to All option to have consistency in transitions across all slides, if desired.
This course presents slide masters as a feature students may wish to edit, but does not cover how to create new masters and layouts “from scratch”. With that in mind, demonstrate to students how and why they might want to edit a slide master, and how the layouts in the slide master view relate to the layouts they have been selecting in exercises.
Text on slides is most effective when it’s short and concise. However, a presenter may have more to say about a topic than they have written in bullet points, or the slide may contain a picture or chart. In these cases, adding presenter notes to a slide is a great way to remind a presenter of the content they wished to deliver at this point in the presentation, or remind them to pause and ask for questions, open other material, etc. Notes may be printed, or displayed in Presenter View on a laptop, with the slide show displayed through a projector or secondary monitor attached to the computer. Demonstrate the notes area the bottom of a slide (and how to expand it) as well as the Notes view.
Review the topics covered in this lesson to remind students of what they have learned and accomplished, and to invite questions on any topics not entirely clear.
