An Introduction to PowerPoint

1. PowerPoint is a type of software used to create "presentations." It works like this: You prepare all your information and then you type it into PowerPoint. Then you add special effects to make it look snazzy.

2. Here is a very simple PowerPoint presentation. I made it in about 1/2 hour, and I am not an expert at PowerPoint. I am showing it to you in order to give you an idea of how a presentation looks. When you have read the information on the screen, click your left mouse button once. That is how you move to the next image. Click here to begin the sample presentation.

3. You need to know several key vocabulary words to understand PowerPoint. Here are the main ones:

Slide: a page in the PowerPoint presentation. A presentation is made up of 5, 10, 12, 33, or however many slides you need to get your point across.

Object: a text box, or a piece of clip art, or anything else that you add to a slide.

Text Box: a box that appears on a PowerPoint slide where you can type in information. Sometimes, you use pre-planned templates that already say where the typed information will go. Other times, you draw a text box, and then fill it in with your typed information.

Transition: How the presentation moves from slide to slide. It could be a dissolve, or a checkerboard, or any of the other styles.

4. Now please begin the PowerPoint tutorial at the link below. The tutorial was written for teachers, but it will be great for explaining PowerPoint to you. When you have looked through the tutorial, you can begin creating your own PowerPoint presentation, following the written instructions you received. Have fun!

Click here for the PowerPoint Tutorial