PowerPoint Shortcuts and tips

Enter Advance to next slide

Backspace Return to previous slide
<number> Enter Go to slide number <number>
Shift + F10 Display the Shortcut menu, then press the underlined letter in the
menus
B Display a black screen temporarily (press B again to return to slide
show)
W Display a white screen temporarily (press W again to return to slide
show)
Esc End a slide show before reaching the last slide
Ctrl + P Change the arrow pointer to the pen pointer
Ctrl + A Change the pen pointer back to the arrow pointer
E Erase a drawing made with the pen pointer
Ctrl + H Hide the mouse pointer and menu buttons temporarily
Ctrl + arrow key Move one pixel at a time right, left, up or down
Ctrl + Shift + G Group objects
Ctrl + Shift + H Ungroup objects
Shift + drag corner Resize an image retaining its proportions
Shift + drag vertically Move an object vertically or horizontally
or horizontally

In addition to these shortcuts, If you really want to, you can make your own toolbar for the
actions you use the most often. Go to View/Toolbars/Customize/New. Give your toolbar a
name such as PowerPoint shortcuts. Click OK. Your new toolbar should now appear on
screen. So what are you going to put on it? Click on the Commands tab. Under categories,
click on say Drawing. Under Commands, drag an icon such as Group on to your new toolbar.
Repeat process for more icons. My toolbar has Group, Ungroup, Bring to Front and Send to
Back at the moment. Once you've finished adding icons, you can have your toolbar 'floating'
or you can drag it up to rest next to your standard toolbars at the top of the screen. Easy.
Now whenever you open PowerPoint, your toolbar will be there waiting for you!

PowerPoint Tips

1. To avoid your presentation from accidentally ending with a mouse click. Click on Slide
Show/Slide Transition and remove the tick from the box next to Advance On mouse click.

2. Save your presentation as a PowerPoint Show and it will then open in Slide Show mode when
you double click on it.

3. To match colours or create seamless backgrounds in PowerPoint use the free software
Eyedropper http://www.inetia.com/eyedropper_eng.php which when activated creates a
magnified window attached to the mouse pointer to show the exact colour and RGB value of any
pixel on your screen. Very useful.
4. Use PowerPoint as a starter for spellings on a particular topic. Try the following effect on
any text in a Text Box. Apply the custom animation - Flash Once - Fast (You can be more
precise in PowerPoint 2002 with the speed) and select Introduce text - By letter. To ‘rewind’
the animation, just press backspace key in slideshow mode and then enter. Repeat procedure.
5. Create customised role-plays by pasting clip art characters on to a digital photo background
of an appropriate scene such as outside a café. Add speech bubbles - Autoshapes/Callouts,
enter text and make each callout appear in the appropriate order. You can use photos taken
with a digital camera of your local area or find authentic images from the target culture by
using Google Image search e.g http://images.google.fr, http://images.google.es or
http://images.google.de

See examples here

http://www.ngfl-cymru.org.uk/vtc/ngfl/french/primary_french/index.htm
Becta e-magazine ‘ICT in Secondary Magazine: February 2005- Focus on MFL’

Going further with presentation software as a teaching tool –

At Nodehill Middle School on the Isle of Wight, Joe Dale makes the most of presentation
software

Judging by the emergence of such sites as Linguascope, MFL Resources and the Teacher
Resource Exchange, MFL teachers are increasingly sharing PowerPoint presentations for whole-
class teaching with an interactive whiteboard or data projector.

Like overhead projectors (OHP), presentation software can be used to display prepared and
stored pictures and words, but PowerPoint is far more versatile than an OHP because it also
allows sounds and even movie clips to be integrated, and accessed simply by clicking on a link.

Again, as with an OHP, large images presenting vocabulary can be introduced slide by slide, with
or without on-screen words or with the text added progressively. In addition, the images can
then be amalgamated (as smaller versions) on to a single slide and techniques such as using
specific colour as a background can be used to reinforce a grammar point such as gender.

Incorporating hyperlinks into a presentation can combine the benefits of more traditional
methods with new possibilities for reinforcing concepts. In addition to the possibility of
hyperlinking any text or image, action buttons enable users to navigate easily through a
presentation by clicking and jumping swiftly from one slide to the next. For example, for a
presentation on pets, action buttons can be placed in the bottom left- and right-hand corners
of slides. The right-hand action button can link to the slide containing images of all the pets
being presented, and the left-hand action button can be linked to the previous slide in the
presentation. To establish a ‘loop’ between slides, the smaller images of pets on the
amalgamated slide are linked back to their corresponding enlarged versions. In this way, the
teacher can move easily and quickly around the presentation.

Hot spots – regular or freeform shapes with no line or fill effect – serve as ‘invisible’ hyperlinks
when placed on top of existing images on an amalgamated slide and linked to images on individual
slides. For example, when presenting vocabulary for different countries, a map of Europe can
contain various hot spots linked to the corresponding flag for that country. By clicking on a
particular country on the map, the link can take you to the slide containing the desired flag.
Action buttons can then be used as above to link back to the map slide. PowerPoint can also be
used as a sophisticated way of playing well-known games such as noughts and crosses and
Blockbusters, either by using the built-in pen tool or by taking a screenshot of a slide and
annotating it using whiteboard software.

Using action buttons on question slides, quiz templates can also be made for games like
Jeopardy and Who Wants to be a Millionaire? For example, three buttons link to a slide saying
the answer is incorrect and one links to a slide saying the answer is correct. Alternatively, an
incorrect button could lead to a further clue to the correct answer. More action buttons can
then be used to navigate the player back to the beginning of the quiz or on to the next
question.
Movement is one of PowerPoint’s real strengths. Custom animations such as Flash Once, Zoom
and Fly In, when applied consistently to individual or sets of images, can create effects which
make language memorable. Moreover, inserting animated images (usually in GIF format - you can
make your own on websites such as Animation Factory) can be very effective, since they can
help to convey ideas that are difficult to present with still images - for example, the
representation of verbs and adjectives. Royalty-free motion and static clips can be downloaded
from online galleries (see, for example, Microsoft clip art, UVic's Language Teaching Library,
Royalty-Free Clip Art, Nova Development clip art and Hemera Royalty-Free Images), and
commercial boxed clip art collections are also available.

Here are some general tips on using Powerpoint for presentations in the MFL classroom:
 Be consistent in your use of text formatting, colour and custom animation effects in
order to establish your own conventions and to avoid confusing students.
 Plan to use animation and sound sparingly, as too many effects can be distracting.
 Storyboard your ideas on paper beforehand to see where any links need to be.
 Check that all hyperlinks work before using your presentation in class.
 If using PowerPoint, check that the version you use to create the presentation will work
with the version available in the classroom (PowerPoint 2002 and 2003 have many more
effects than previous versions).
 If your presentation is large because it contains a lot of digital images or movie clips,
load it up before the class so that it will be stored in the computer’s short-term memory
and will therefore run more quickly when you start it.
 Always save and back up your presentations.