PowerPoint remains one of the most frequently used presenter tools for law enforcement training.  While there are others (Google, Prezi, etc.) we’re just going to focus on good ol’ PowerPoint.  The purpose of this post is to help our fellow trainers to develop the best possible presentations to support their training.

How to avoid Death by PowerPoint…

Avoid Death by PowerPoint

Keep your slides simple, memorable.

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All four of these slides contains the same information.  It’s important for instructors to remeber that slides are not the training – they enhance the training.  When designing slides try to put as few words on the slide as possible, let the image or data speak for itself.  Use good notes and rehearsals to ensure you – as the isntructor – convey the information with the help of the slide.

Compress images to reduce the size of your .ppt.

We’ve all been there.  You need to upload a .ppt to a shared drive or email it to someone when you suddenly realize your slide deck is nearly a Gig because you’ve chosen to use thought-provoking images instead of lengthy word vomit on your slides.  Here’s a quick video on how to bring that size down quite a bit: