Chapter 2 synopsis "They Snooze you Lose"

Sonia Aldape
6340.64

Chapter 2 Creating Slides and handouts

Considering what was learned in the previous chapter now you must take into account that according to Jakob Nielson, “you only have about ten seconds to grab visitors’ attention before they click off your site." Therefore, when creating a presentation you have two options in developing your slides to maintain motivation and attentiveness by the audience whether it is for entertainment or edutainment. Nonetheless, whether your audiences are adults or students, as a presenter you have an obligation to instill knowledge in an engaging manner. One recommendation mentioned in this chapter is to avoid using handouts that resemble the actual power point presentation because by doing this the audience will be bored and inattentive. As you create the slides it is suggested that images with words be used to keep the audience engaged. “Mayer’s research confirms what good teachers have always known intuitively: The best way to foster learning involves both words and pictures.” Furthermore, handouts must be used to encourage the audience to compile information that can be helpful in the future. During the presentation “if there are books, articles, websites, quotations you refer to during the presentation, put those on the handout.” Finally, if the audience is stimulated throughout the presentation and the handouts are used as a support for retaining the information that is being presented then the presenter has impacted the audience.

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1 Nielson, Jakob, “Top Ten Mistakes in Web Page Design” 1996 [Online article available: http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9605a.html]
2 Mayer, Richard E., Multimedia Learning (2nd ed.) (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009).
3 Burmark, Lynell, (2011)-They snooze, you lose: the educator’s guide to successfulpresentations/Lynell Burmark.