1

Slidecasting

• Why you are doing this.• About slidecasting.• Creating your slidecast.

© 2015 Karen L. Thompson Department of English University of Idaho

English 313: Business Writing

2

Why you are doing this.• So, by now, you should know that all things

“casting” are 21st century workplace communication products.

• Slidecasts combine audio with a slideshow that has been created using software such as PowerPoint.

• You can pull up a slideshow and do a screencast to add audio, but there are easier ways. In bblearn, you will see a list of free slidecasting tools.

3

Slideware Presentations Can Be Hazardous to Audiences

4

How often have you seen a presenter do this?

5

Keep in mind that slidecasts are not documents.

• Audiences don’t want you to read to them.

• Audiences want you to engage them by creating an interesting presentation.

• Mixing the media in your slideshow helps to engage the audience.

– We all learn in different ways, so mix up the media and engage your audience through various senses. See how you can illustrate your points through photos, music, demos, and videos.

– Advice from Forbes magazine

6

Have a Clear Purpose and Story• In this project, you are explaining the best cultural awareness

practices for doing business with people from an unfamiliar culture.

• Focus the slidecast because you don’t want to try to cover everything in the guide. Pick something that would be particularly interesting, and help the audience become more engaged with thinking about cultural awareness.

• You will need to introduce the country/culture and then cover a key point (can be more than one) from the guide.

• Create a visually interesting slideshow with minimal text and a voice-over audio that applies what you learned from the podcast.

7

Creating and Delivering Your Mixed Media Slideware Presentation

8

1. Avoid Templates – Design Your Own Slides

9

2. If you use photos, pick ones that look like real people.

10

3. If you use clip art, find interesting figures – avoid cartoonish clip art.

11

4. Keep text to a minimum.

• Remember, you will be providing audio voice over, so you want to ILLUSTRATE the points you make with interesting visuals.

• The whole point is for the viewer to listen to you while watching visually interesting stuff that support what you are saying.

12

5. Keep the Layout Simple.

Complex layouts like this one confuse readers because the layout is not in keeping with our usual eye movements. Notice how we cannot use the

usual eye movement in the complex slide because there is no clear starting point.

13

6. To design for natural eye movement, place content in any one direction.

Use the content layouts in the slideware tool you are using to help you with layout. Apply the design principles you learned in the visual communication project such as alignment and proximity.

14

7. Use a color palette.

Apply the principles of color theory you learned when designing your billboard or poster when choosing colors for your slides.

15

8. Typography Tips

• Choose typefaces with conventional letter forms.

• Keep to two (one for the title of slides, and the other for the body). Test how two fonts look.

• Avoid trite correlations like using Papyrus because you are talking about Egypt.

16

9. If you use animations, keep them simple.

• Appear: The object simply pops on the screen.

• Fade: The object fades in or out in a way that’s a bit slicker and more deliberate.

• Wipe: Imagine an invisible eraser wipes the object on or off of the slide.

• Don’t over do it, or your audience will feel like this guy.

17

10. Audio Tips

• You will need to choose a tool to create the audio (see bblearn for some options).

• The challenge in doing the audio for slideware is to be certain you voice is in sync with the slides.

• You might want to do a few trial runs.