Billy M. Thornton, Ph.D., College of Business, CSU
If you use PowerPoint in teaching your class, you probably have run into the following dilemma: you want to follow good slide design practices and keep the slides 'clean and simple', BUT, you want to make sure you include key points in your presentation, e.g., a key point that you will include on the test (don't want the students to be able to say 'you never told us that!').
One way around the dilemma is to print the slides and make handwritten notes on each slide. This can tie you to reading the notes and losing contact with your students. Or, you can glance at the notes from time to time --- which may lead to skipping that important point.
Another is to use the Notes feature of PowerPoint and print them --- because they don't normally show while the slide is being projected. But then, you're back to reading the notes or skimming them as you try to engage the class.
A way around this issue is to employ the Use Presenter View option in PowerPoint. This option allows you to view the comments in Notes on your laptop as the slide is being projected to the screen. To use this option, you’ll need two monitors --- your laptop monitor is one and the other can be another computer monitor or a projector. Then, just follow these steps.
- 1. For the slides with those key points, type them in the Notes area of the slide. In the Normal view, simply click in the area where the phrase 'Click to add notes' shows. See Figure 1. As you start typing, that phrase disappears. When you're through, click back on the slide.
Figure 1: Adding Notes to a PowerPoint slide.
Figure 2 shows the slide with some notes included.
- 2. Now, click on the Slide Show tab of the Ribbon, and in the Monitors group of commands, select Use Presenter View. You can also choose which monitor the Presenter View will display on if you have multiple monitors available. See Figure 3.
Figure 3: Selecting Use Presenter View
- 3. Now, launch your slide. On the chosen monitor, you should see something like Figure 4, while the slide is projected onto the screen (or the second monitor, whichever you’re using).
Figure 4: The Use Presenter View
I’ve increased the size of the notes by clicking on the Zoom button at the bottom of the notes.
Note that the projected slide is highlighted. You can advance or back-up to a slide by using the blue arrows, or, jump to any slide by clicking on its thumbnail. Clicking on the pen icon lets you choose a pen or highlighter to work with in your presentation. Clicking on the white menu icon gives you the PowerPoint menu to control your presentation (end it, go to a specific slide, darken the slide, etc.).
More than two monitors can be configured to work with Use Presenter View. For this and more on Use Presenter View, click the Help button in PowerPoint and search for Use Presenter View.