Brainslides
You've probably seen countless presentations with grainy, pixelated images. That's because the presenter uses an image with a low resolution – a common mistake when pulling images from Google. Here's how you ensure that the image you download is the highest quality possible for your presentation.
After my previous post, I thought I would quickly share how I used Flickr's CreativeCommons section to find high quality images to use in presentations.
Watch it here or on Vimeo.
Did you know you can find free, high-quality images that have been licensed for re-use? I will explain how to search for them at Flickr.com and use them in your presentation.
It's not often that you get to see a presentation and think, "Wow." I'm not talking about the "whoa dude! That was so awesome!" kind of reaction. What I'm talking about is when you know that the message you just heard was exactly what the presenter meant for you to hear, and that the whole experience was simple and clear.
I recently had this experience watching the keynote at Apple's World Wide Developer's Conference. 
Go ahead, chuckle, snort, you can even post a snarky comment about me being an Apple fanboy. It's alright. Because it's true. I love Apple and everything they stand for. I'm not saying that they are a perfect organization or that this presentation didn't have any flaws (in fact, there were two obvious errors in this keynote). It's just that their simple, direct approach to business, product design, marketing – and presenting – make it so that little, if anything, is misunderstood.
Go ahead and watch just a little bit of it.
Notice how there is rarely any text on the screen.
Beautiful, high quality images are used in place of bullet points.
Simple, easy to read graphs.
Transitions are used appropriately to create emphasis.
Not to mention a clutter free stage, large projector screen, the use of light humor, repetition, seamless transitions between speakers, and more.
Seriously, just watch a bit if you have some time.
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.
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.
(Via 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.
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!