Presentation Fanatic

PowerPoint 2007 offers a lot of surprises to us when she made her debut with ribbon coat and SmartArt accessories years ago, however, those tremendous changes lead a lot of problems, such as incompatibility. Since Office 14 is going its way from alpha to beta at Microsoft labs, my only expectation on potential PowerPoint 14 is the full-featured Web presentation.

Among those leaked Office 14 "alpha" screenshots and new feature rumors, I can't find too much information about our PowerPoint baby. So how will Microsoft treat the leading presentation software in the world? Frankly speaking, Microsoft's PowerPoint has changed little over the years, while competitor Apple's Keynote coming with more improvements like "cinematic transitions".

Right, SmartArt in PowerPoint 2007 is just sort of luxury accessories for a presentation. Microsoft should focus more classic elements like transitions, animations, since the ribbon and SmartArt are already well done. Hopefully Microsoft is working on kinda this, so no news about PowerPoint 14 yet.

The selection of presentation software is important, because we can easily tell the difference between PowerPoint and Keynote presentations. Intriguingly Microsoft shows a little interest in Web apps recently, and we can see these Web PowerPoint fantasies from last PDC weeks ago. Get all elements done in online editing of Web PowerPoint, better than those free services online to reveal your power, okay? This is my another request on our estimated PowerPoint 14 to Microsoft.





William Peterson
Presentation Veteran

The evidence that sales at many companies are struggling and that companies have to lay off employees to maintain companies' running. Dell Inc, the world's No. 2 PC maker, will cut about 1,900 of 3,000 jobs at its manufacturing plant in Limerick. DHL Express cut almost 15,000 people, and so on. This number is only the tip of the iceberg. To companies, laying off employees is not the only way to get through the economic crisis. The pivotal issue is to consider how to ensure your staff works more productive and efficiency to increase profit?

The other day, I read one report on web. It says: "Train to Gain has ploughed £2.4 million into an advertising campaign in a bid to highlight the importance of training to small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) during the recession. " This drives me to doubt the necessity of this investment. The SMEs don't realize the importance of training staff, do they? I don't think so. In my opinion, it’s the high cost and time recoil from their steps. Maybe it would be better to invest such money to SMEs for their training plan.

Most Companies know that investing in training is essential to their business but it is more important than ever in the current economic climate. But the issue is that they cannot afford the training programs. In the traditional face-to-face training, you should have to pay huge amounts of money to the trainers, in-class instructors, or experts. Moreover, you also have to pay for the expenses, such as travel and meals. Not to mention of the cost of time.

As a matter of fact, there are some good training solutions for the SMEs, such as eLearning - a type of Technology Supported Education/Learning (TSL) where the medium of instruction is computer technology. ELearning is used interchangeably in a wide variety of contexts. There are many outstanding advantages about eLearning. To be simplified, it is overall money-saving and time-saving. To be elaborated, here are some advantages:

-- Anytime. Learner can access the course at any time that is convenient - not just during the specific 1-3-hour period that is set for a conventional course. The episodes can be quick snatches at odd times or long late-night sessions. Cross-time-zone communication, difficult to arrange in real time, is as easy as talking to someone across town when using the Internet.

-- Anywhere. Eliminate the need for the physical presence of the teacher or learners in the learning process. That means they can be anywhere. International sharing is feasible. Individuals can log on at work, home, the library, in a community learning centre or from their hotel when travelling.

-- Substantial cost savings. ELearning eliminates the expense and inconvenience of getting the instructor and students in the same place. The expenses, such as travel and meals will reduce to minimum.

By taking a holistic approach, SMEs can arrive at a training process that is more engaging and effective through eLearning at an economical cost. In the circumstance, how to make eLearning for SMEs more feasible from cost and time? Many eLearning solutions are available for SMEs to adopt. Using Open Source, free authoring tools and Learn management system (LMS) would be the most money-saving way.

The combination Moodle & CourseLab would be a good solution for SMEs to carry out eLearning plan. And it's FREE. Especially, it is an ideal way in this economy downturn. Moodle is a free and open source e-learning software platform (also known as a Course Management System (CMS), or LMS). It is designed to help educators create online courses with opportunities for rich interaction. Its open source license and modular design means that people can develop additional functionality. CourseLab is a powerful e-learning authoring tool that offers programming-free WYSIWYG environment for creating high-quality interactive e-learning content which can be published on the Internet, Learning Management Systems (LMS), CD-ROMS and other devices.

Further more, if you want some advanced eLearning solution to create more high impact yet effective training plan, you could choose some cost-effective commercial tools. The combination Moodle & PPT2Flash would be recommended. PPT2Flash is powerful eLearning tool to let non-technical users create compelling Flash presentations and eLearning courses from PowerPoint with rich media, quizzes and simulations. PPT2Flash content could run on any Web server, any LMS.

"Our future. It's in our hands". "SMEs' future. It's in your investment on ELearning".

This article will demonstrate how to create a simple online quiz, complete with options for feedback, scoring and tracking, using free Flash quiz template. Please ensure you can manage to use Adobe Flash MX, Flash 8, Flash CS3, or Flash CS4 (http://www.adobe.com/products/flash/) before attempting this.

The quiz template is included in Flash MX and above versions, and it is designed to automatically track results and send them to a learning management system configured for your quiz. Furthermore, it should be SCORM and AICC compliant for using in Learning Management System (LMS).

If you're not sophisticated with Adobe Flash editing, you might be interested in the Flash quiz tool Wondershare QuizCreator (http://www.sameshow.com/quiz-creator.html) for rapid development as replacement.

First of all, you can download a 30 day trial version of Adobe Flash from the Adobe's official website (http://www.adobe.com/downloads/).

1. Create a new Flash document choosing the existing Quiz template. File > New > Templates tab > 'Quiz' Category > 'Modern Photo Quiz_style2 ' Template

2. A fully functional quiz with templates for Drag and Drop, Fill in the Blank, Hot Objects, Hot Spot, Multiple Choice, and True or False, will open.

3. Test the movie Control > Test Movie

4. Save the Flash document, giving it a name. File > Save

- Customize Quiz Template

For detailed instructions on how to edit the quiz template to your requirements, learn the official Flash quiz template tutorial at http://www.adobe.com/support/flash/applications/quiz_tutorial/.

- Adding A Single Quiz in Flash

You can add any question types as a single quiz (e.g. true or false type) into your Flash document at any time, however these standalone quiz interactions, when used outside of the quiz template, are not designed for SCORM tracking in LMS.

1. If you want to insert a single quiz as learning interaction, you can just do like this: Window > Common Libraries > Learning Interactions

2. A library of the various learning interactions will open up. Drag the one you want onto the stage.

- Alternative Flash Quiz Solution

As we know, not every user can use Flash programming perfectly to create quizzes. So over the market, there's some rapid quiz authoring tool like Wondershare QuizCreator (http://www.sameshow.com/quiz-creator.html) to help make Flash quizzes in an easier way.

At last, for more knowledge about using Adobe Flash MX, Flash 8, Flash CS3, or Flash CS4, please refer to Adobe Flash Support Center: http://www.adobe.com/support/flash/

To measure learning performance in a flexible approach, many instructors have successfully implemented online tests and exams with e-learning authoring tools. Theoretically instructors would obtain all test items and responses in detail, and generate analysis report of scoring statistics for effective teaching and learning. However, due to the lack of system-based tracking support or tech knowledge, most instructors are muddled by these enormous raw data of test results from participants. That's why such an easy online reporting system is so essential for the online assessment.

Fortunately, there have been some existing solutions for teachers to track and analyze test results, such as statistics capabilities in most Learning Management Systems (LMS), or some specialized assessment management systems, or any built-in reporting services included in the authoring tools. Which is the best solution for you? Now let's review them in details.

Statistics Reporting in LMS System
Most Learning Management Systems such as Blackboard (http://www.blackboard.com/) have the scoring capabilities to track and report e-learning activities. However, these learning systems may not have such proficient test results analysis, and be not that really easy to use for novices. If the instructors just need overall statistics, and have already managed the systems, the solution could be considered with further development.

Assessment Management Server
As specialized solution, there're some assessment management servers such as Questionmark Perception with Results Management System, which provide professional management works from tracking, scoring to reporting. Don't doubt their capabilities to conduct all test items and scoring reports. Instructors would get the most values as they want with the elaborate servers. Certainly, you have to take enough time and money to get used to the systems.

Free Built-in Reporting System
Besides any expensive independent solutions above, some instructor can try those built-in online reporting service within authoring tools, like Quiz Management System (http://www.sameshow.com/quiz-creator/quiz-online-reporting-system.html) for the assessment authoring tool Wondershare QuizCreator. Kind of these hosted systems are free and easy-to-understand, and helps instructors track, analyze and report test results without any hassles, similar to what LMS systems or assessment servers can do on most stages.

Definitely, the instructors with high-end requirements may deploy the assessment servers, while some others will use the built-in reporting for assessment authoring tools. Whatever the choice they make, as online tests have helped access learning in an easy yet smart way, now instructors should have an efficient solution to get most values from the assessment results of online tests.

Are you suffering the high cost and continual repetition of live presentations?
“As a president, I always join many meetings and trade shows to present our products or corporation. There is no problem with the live presentation. But I’m stuck when I want to sharing the meeting with others after it. Because I need present the same presentation again and again even spend additional high costs on driving or flying. The boring continual repetition makes me crazy. Is there any way to take my live presentation to the web? – Mr. Cooper”

PowerPoint is still the most popular tool for presentations now. It could integrate images, movies, narrations, animations to make the presentation animated and interactive. But the PowerPoint file is big and hard to share on the web, hard to integrate with the presenter’s video and narration to live up the presentation.



How to distribute the live presentations to web to reduce the cost?
As everybody knows that, web presentation is a big cost and time saving solution. If we could run the presentation with the presenter’s video and narration online, it will be perfect. The difficulty of the web presentation is hard to integrate the presenter’s video and narration along with the PowerPoint presentation content. Is there any way to fix this problem?

A brand new service gives you an easy-to-use way to integrate the presenter’s video with PowerPoint slideshows, sharing the results online. This simple tool makes it a piece of cake to run the presenter’s video content side-by-side with PowerPoint presentations. So the audience could get the presentation running alongside with presenter’s video and narration in action, likes that the presenter stands by them. This really has the power to bring online presentations to life.

There are many tools such as Wondershare PPT2Flash Professional and services like Omnisio, Zentation to integrate the video along with the PowerPoint slideshows. Here is the comparability of the two ways.

PPT2Flash Professional converts the PowerPoint presentations to Flash with presenter’s video and narration in one click. It works as a PowerPoint add-in. Presenter could easily distribute the Flash presentations to their website or training center for sharing. The Flash format is safer and smaller for web distribution.



Omnisio and Zentation are simple online applications for the synchronization and sharing of the Slideshare-hosted PowerPoint decks and Google Video-hosted content. You could upload your video to Youtube and then upload the PowerPoint presentation to Slideshare, use Omnisio and Zentation to synchronization them together. They will generate one webpage for you. You could share the content with others on this webpage.

In a nutshell, for inner continual presentations, PPT2Flash Professional seems a better solution; for external one time presentation, Omnisio and Zentation are better solutions.


By William Peterson, Partnered with Sabrina F.