This Week In Finance

Powerpoint Tips: First in a Series

Perhaps I'm just getting old, but it seems to me that the "showbiz" aspect of teaching becomes more important every year. No longer can we rely solely on a blackboard and a stick of chalk (even colored chalk) or old, yellowed overheads to get our point across to today's students. (Here's a sobering thought -- just as as TV has always been present in the homes of most Finance professors working today, MTV has always been present in the homes of their students. Think about it.)

Anyway, many of you are undoubtedly using Micrsoft Powerpoint in your lectures. (Of course, it is the format of choice for RWJ slides!) Anyway, here'S a tip to jazz up your presentations.

First, try putting together your own Powerpoint-based fill-in-the-blank slides for use as in-class discussion tools, quizzes, or homework solutions. It's easy! Just:

1. Prepare the slide with blanks in the appropriate spots.

2. Click to "Slide Sorter View" (lower LH corner of screen), select the slide you've just made, then hit Edit, Copy, Edit, Paste, to duplicate it.

3. Go back to "Slide View" (again lower LH corner of your screen), and replace the blank line in your slide with the answer. (Here's a tip within a tip: choose "Format, Font, Color" to make the answer a different color than the rest of the text.) Now check your results by clicking on the "Slide Show" icon, then toggling back and forth with the arrow keys.

4. Now add a little movement: Go to the initial slide, click on "Slide Show, Slide Transition" and choose an effect from the drop-down box. Then click "Apply" (NOT "Apply to All"). Next, click on "Slide Show, Custom Animation" and choose the mode of entry for the text. (I prefer "Fly from Left" but I also mix it up to keep the presentation interesting.)

5. Now check the results! Powerpoint lets you do things with a presentation that graphic artists could only dream about a decade ago. Now pitch those dusty old transparencies and get into the 21st century!

By the way -- did you know that the Powerpoint, Word, and Excel applications in Office 2000 are backwards-compatible to Office 97?