Making a first PowerPoint presentation::
After reading the lecture and performing the activities designed to acquaint you with the features of PowerPoint, try making a basic presentation on a subject in your own field.

Here are the steps:

• Open the program
• Go to View and select open Task Pane (it should appear on the right of the screen with lots of options)
• Select a slide layout (if that option is not showing, click on the small inverted triangle and select Slide Layout from the drop box)
• First type your presentation title and your name, giving your own title. The presentation title should be in larger type. You can format it any way you want. I would pick presentation design format from those available on the Task Pane.
• Go to Save As and save the file (I would create a separate folder for each presentation so that you won't mix up the files. If you need to copy an image from one folder to another, you can always do that.)
• Using the skills you learned in the lecture and associated activities, add content to your presentation.

Remember that you can use photos (either that you take or that you download from the WWW -- giving credit on the slide, of course), you can make graphics in Paint (or other image creation programs if you have them). You can also scan images from magazines, newspapers, and textbooks.

Set a modest goal, at first. Aim, for approximately 10 slides. You want to make sure that you don't have too much clutter on each slide. However, if you are planning a slide presentation for individual student study instead of projecting it on a large screen for a group to wee, you can use smaller type. The PowerPoint defaults are a good guide.

You can make the presentation as simple or sophisticated as you are comfortable doing. Save your work often, and from time to time, click on the slide show icon () to see how the presentation is shaping up. You may decide to make alterations after seeing how it appears in Slide Show view.

Make it a point to use the skills for slide duplication and inserting new slides. Also, you might try adding a link or two if you feel comfortable. Likewise, you may decided to rearrange the order of some of the slides -- if for nothing else to get comfortable doing it.

Finally, if you want to experiment with basic animation for the way text appears or dissolves on the screen or the way slides appear in transition from one to the next, do what you can.

Remember, too, to make use of the icons for

First, notice the icon that has two capital letter A's with black triangles beside them

• Increasing or decreasing text size:
• For colorizing test:

Use the other features as they seem necessary and desirable. Here is a list of the various skills we worked on:

• Add new slide
• Resize selected text
• Change fonts
• Color selected text
• Fill background for entire slide or text box
• Add table
• Select a new slide design
• Sorting slides
• Duplicating slides
• Inserting images
• Inserting links
• Inserting images (either from files you have saved or from clip art)

Conclusion:
Once you finished your presentation, you can move through it by clicking on return, using the up and down arrow keys or the keys marked PgDn and PgUP. You may also be able to use a remote control device if the computer you are using has one.

As a last step, you may try saving the entire project in HTML for uploading onto the web. There are numerous examples of such programs. Here, for example, is one that appears to have been made with PowerPoint:

The Cosmic Year

And here is a link that discusses how to prepare PowerPoint presentations for online viewing:

Creating a PowerPoint 2000 Generated Accessible HTML Presentation

:Good luck.