Finding High Quality Images with Google

Here is the first video tutorial. This is a follow up to my previous post on using Full Screen Images in your presentations. I mentioned how important it is to use images that are at least 800 x 600 pixels. Most people tend to grab images that look grainy and pixelated.

In this video, I will show you how to use Google Image Search to limit your image search to high quality images. As mentioned in the video, I do not recommend using Google to find your images since you will likely run into copyright issues. However, it is very probable that you will continue to use images from the web when time, budget, or other constraints prevent you from using license-free stock images, so why not learn how to make small improvements.

Find High Quality Images Using Google Search from Brain Slides on Vimeo.

Scott McCloud on comics | Video on TED.com

I recently watched this video on TED.com and was terribly excited by it. I don't know anything about comics, and I don't care to learn anything about them, but what excited me so much was the way in which Scott McCloud presented on comics. His presentation style actually resembles a comic strip in many ways. Heavily - nay, almost exclusively - based on visuals, Scott uses full bleed images to illustrate key points or even single words as he is speaking. At times he speaks a sentence naturally as he rapidly steps through a series of images for each of the words (pay attention at 2 min 15 sec to see what I mean).

Scott's presentation is also in the form of a story. He talks about the influence of his father in his life and also explains the history of comics in an entertaining and flowing narrative. And yet his presentation is also very informative and includes a lot of important concepts and even facts.

I look at this presentation and dream of the day that I come across a professor using this format in a lecture. Mind you, by no means would I encourage any professor to adopt this lecture style exclusively (unless the course were on story telling), but, it is an excellent tool to employ once in a semester or to provide a change-up in the lecture.

Scott McCloud on comics | Video on TED.com:

Some of my favorite presentations

I've compiled a set of my favorite presentations on Slideshare.net. I chose most of these presentations for their design - they follow good principles that avoid distractions and excessive text - rather than the content. The majority of these presentations don't have to do with education or presentation design, but they are great examples of how to design a great presentation.
I chose a couple of other presentations more for the content related to Brain Slides. This doesn't mean that their design is horrible by any means, but the content deals with how to make good presentations.

You can view the presentations below or search for them on Slideshare.

| Get your Presentation Pack

Fill Screen with Images for More Impact

When you use images in your presentation you can make them have more impact by doing one simple thing: fill the screen with the image. In the printing business this is called full bleed. You've more than likely come across a book, magazine, or pamphlet that has a full bleed image. The great thing about full bleed images is that, rather than feeling like you are looking at a picture, you almost feel like you are in the image itself. That is because all distractions are removed by printing the image all the way to the edge of the page.

To make a slide have more impact and to avoid distracting elements, scale it up to fit the entire slide (or even larger if you want to focus on a certain element). Do not leave any portion of the background showing. Take a look at the following examples:

In the original, I simply placed the image in the slide as the template suggested. It's fine, really, until you see the second option. Here I filled the entire slide with the image. This changes the viewer's perspective from looking at a picture to actually being in the picture. Also, it actually made more room to place the text - right on top of the image.

Troubleshooting

Now, I will let you know right up front that you will run into two problems with this approach.

First, you may want to use an image that is in portrait orientation rather than landscape (meaning it is taller than it is wide). If you were to fill the slide with an image like this you would have to crop it and most likely lose nearly half of the image. The solution is simple. Use a plain black background and fill the slide vertically while leaving margins on the side. When the image is projected on the screen, those dark margins will simply disappear because they blend in with the rest of the unused projector screen. Softening the edges of the picture will remove any sharp lines and help the photo to blend in even more.

Second, after you scale the images to fill the slide, they may become distorted or "pixelated". If this happens, the image you are using does not have high enough resolution. Most projectors have a screen resolution of 800x600 pixels. (Newer models have 1024x768 or even higher if it is a widescreen projector.) In fact, 800x600 is the default resolution of new presentations in most software. If your image has a lower resolution and you stretch it to fill the screen, some detail will be lost. So be sure the images you use have a resolution of at least 800x600 pixels in order to fill the screen and maintain full quality.

In a future post I will explain how to determine the resolution of an image and even how to quickly find a suitable image on Google or Flickr.

The Science Of Presentations - SlideShare

I was browsing Slideshare, as I am wont to do, and came across this excellent new presentation by Kevin Gee. It's actually a slidecast, which means it includes his audio narration.
The Science of Presentation summarizes cognitive and educational psychology research as it applies to presentations. Kevin begins by explaining how our intuition does not always lead us to correct principles. This is so true! I frequently repeat that bad presentation design is not really the presenter's fault. They just do what the software and social norms dictate.

Kevin proceeds with 3 main topics:

1. Summary of Cognitive Theory

2. Factors for Effectiveness

3. Application

In the third section, Kevin does a great job of taking a poorly designed slide and transforming it into a few slides that are designed with the brain in mind.

My favorite part about the presentation: Kevin practices what he preaches. The whole presentation is well designed and does not distract from his narration.

The Science Of Presentations

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: kevin mayer)

(Via Slideshare.)

Brain Slides Presentation on Slideshare

I used the slides below for a presentation I gave to an advanced writing course this past September. It was created in Keynote and I presented it using the Pointer app for the iPhone as the clicker. It won't make much sense to you by looking at the slides alone, because these slides were simply a visual enhancement to what I was saying as the presenter. This is an important concept to remember when designing your own presentations: the students should pay attention to you, the teacher, and should only refer to your slides when you want them to.

Brain Slides Intro

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: education powerpoint)

I am working on a stand-alone presentation for Slideshare that will introduce Brain Slides without the need for my explanations as you click through the slides. I will post it soon!

Introduction to Brain Rules

In many of the articles on this site I frequently refer to Brain Rules. A brief introduction will help you understand what Brain Rules are and how they relate to presentation design.

Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Home, Work, and School is written by Dr. John Medina, a developmental biologist and faculty member at both the University of Washington School of Medicine and Seattle Pacific University. He studies the brain – how it developed, how it works – and what that means for us in our day to day activities.

A brain rule is "something that scientists know for sure about how the brain works." For example, scientists know that the brain requires sleep to function well, so Sleep is a Brain Rule. Dr. Medina examines 12 of these principles and discusses how they should influence our daily actions: Because scientists know that sleep is very important, we ought to make it a priority in our daily schedule.

What is astonishing about the book is the realization that most people in our society are breaking nearly all of the Brain Rules! For instance, it is not news to most of us that we need sleep to function well, yet very few people make sleep a priority in our daily schedule. At the end of each chapter Dr. Medina offers simple suggestions on how society's habits can be changed to accommodate Brain Rules.

So what do Brain Rules have to do with presentations?

In fact, nearly all of the Brain Rules at least indirectly affect some aspect of presentations, teaching, and learning. Rule #1 states that exercise improves brain function. Rule #4 teaches us that we do not pay attention to boring things (i.e. most PowerPoint slides) and Rule #10 emphasizes the importance of Vision and explains why text is inferior to pictures.

To sum up the relationship between Brain Rules and presentations, take a look at this Slideshare presentation done by presentation guru, Garr Reynolds.

Brain Rules for Presenters

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: reynolds garr)

To learn more about Brain Slides, buy the book on Amazon.com:

Visit the Brain Rules website, or stay tuned for more posts on how Brain Rules should play a key role in how you design your presentations for the classroom.