Power Point Presentation

Power Point Presentation general overview

Power Point presentation is graphics software that allows users to create presentations. It allows editing of outline, draws, graphics and management of presentations. In other words, it is a software package that enables all these functions.

History

Power point presentation was first created by Thomas Rudkin and Dennis Austin. They did it under the umbrella of a company called Forethought. At its first release, it was called the presenter. The presenter was made for the McIntosh computer which was one of the foremost computers ever produced. The presenter was later renamed Power point due to copy right and trade mark issues, the original forethought was taken over by Microsoft and that was how power point became the property of Microsoft. There was massive improvement to power point with the release of power point 97. Power point 97 allowed users to create special effects in a non linear style unlike earlier versions that only allow linear presentations.Another improvement to power point was made when power point 2000 was introduced. The highlight of this version was the introduction of clipboard. The clipboard can hold several objects. Another important feature of power point 2000 was the refinement of Microsoft office assistant.

Basic operations of power point

The highlight of power point presentation is its ability is to produce images or graphics slides. The slides are similar to the slide projector. Slides may contain texts, graphics, sounds, movies, and numerous other objects which can be freely arranged. These operations are made possible through the use of a template called the slide master. The good thing about power point presentation is that it can either be printed or viewed directly on the computer. For bigger audiences, the computer display is manipulated using a video presenter

Animations in power point presentation

Three types of movements are possible when using power point presentation

• Entrance, emphasis, and exit of elements are controlled by what is known as custom animations.
• Custom animations can be strategically used to create small piece of story boards. This is usually done by animating pictures to enter, exit or move.
• Transitions are movements between slides; these are often animated using the number of ways mentioned above.

The benefits of power points presentations are still on debate. It is still questionable whether it is better than over head projectors and traditional lectures. Some have argued that bad power point does nothing for the educational growth of the students. The argument is that it does more harm than good since a student takes nothing away from a poor power point presentation. The jury is still out on these claims. It only remains to be seen if there is any merit to these claims.

The social importance of power point

It has been argued that power point presentation has negative social impact on the society. These arguments were offered despite the many benefits of power point presentations. Large companies and cooperations make use of power point presentations to brief employees on critical issues. This, according to the opponents, is detrimental rather than beneficial. They argued that the use of bullets does not provide enough explanations in the decision making process. Therefore the users cannot gmake thoroughly informed decisions. However, power point presentations have come a long way. It is recognized as an educational tool that, when used wisely, will impart positively on the learning process.