Seminar Presentation: Fundamentals

1.1.Introduction

A seminar is a form of academic instruction, either at an academic institution or offered by a commercial or professional organization. It has the function of bringing together small groups for recurring meetings, focusing each time on some particular subject, in which everyone present is requested to participate. This is often accomplished through an ongoing Socratic dialogue with a seminar leader or instructor, or through a more formal presentation of research. It is essentially a place where assigned readings are discussed, questions can be raised and debates can be conducted.

Etymology:

The word seminar is derived from the Latin word seminarium, meaning "seed plot".

Seminars can revolve around term papers, exams, presentations, and several other assignments The idea behind the seminar system is to familiarize students more extensively with the methodology of their chosen subject and also to allow them to interact with examples of the practical problems that always occur during research work.

1.2.Different levels of seminar presentation

Planning Your Presentation

Preparing a presentation can be an overwhelming experience if you allow it to be one. The strategies and steps below are provided to help you break down what you might view as a large job into smaller, more manageable tasks.

Step 1: Analyze your audience

The first step in preparing a presentation is to learn more about the audience to whom you'll be speaking. It's a good idea to obtain some information on the backgrounds, values, and interests of your audience so that you understand what the audience members might expect from your presentation.

Step 2: Select a topic

Next, if possible select a topic that is of interest to the audience and to you. It will be much easier to deliver a presentation that the audience finds relevant, and more enjoyable to research a topic that is of interest to you.

Step 3: Define the objective of the presentation

Once you have selected a topic, write the objective of the presentation in a single concise statement. The objective needs to specify exactly what you want your audience to learn from your presentation. Base the objective and the level of the content on the amount of time you have for the presentation and the background knowledge of the audience. Use this statement to help keep you focused as you research and develop the presentation.

Preparing the Content of Your Presentation

Step 4: Prepare the body of the presentation

The body of the presentation is where you present your ideas. To present your ideas convincingly, you will need to illustrate and support them. Strategies to help you do this include the following:

• Present data and facts
• Read quotes from experts
• Relate personal experiences
• Provide vivid descriptions

Step 5: Prepare the introduction and conclusion

During the opening of your presentation, it's important to attract the audience's attention and build their interest. If you don't, listeners will turn their attention elsewhere and you'll have a difficult time getting it back. Strategies that you can use include the following:

• Make the introduction relevant to the listeners' goals, values, and needs
• Ask questions to stimulate thinking
• Share a personal experience
• Begin with a joke or humorous story
• Project a cartoon or colorful visual
• Make a stimulating or inspirational statement
• Give a unique demonstration

Practicing and Delivering

Step 6: Practice delivering the presentation

Most people spend hours preparing a presentation but very little time practicing it. When you practice your presentation, you can reduce the number of times you utter words and phrases like, "um," "well," and "you know." These habits can easily diminish a speaker's credibility. You can also fine-tune your content to be sure you make your most important points in the time allotted.

1.3.What is PowerPoint presentation

PowerPoint is a slideshow presentation program that's part of the Microsoft office suite of tools. The presentation is a collection of individual slides that contain information on a topic. PowerPoint presentations are commonly used in business meetings and for training and educational purposes. PowerPoint makes it easy to create, collaborate, and present your ideas in dynamic, visually compelling ways.

With the help of power point presentation we can-

·         Communicate with confidence

·         Design like a professional—in seconds

·         Collaborate in real time on presentations

1.4.Advantages of power point presentation

a.    It is easy to download and use virtually anywhere. 
PowerPoint is considered a standard product in many professional settings. This allows you to take your user license virtually anywhere to be able to create the graphics needed for your presentation. It is so expected, in fact, that you may create a negative first impression if you don’t have a PowerPoint presentation to offer.

b.   It can make a presentation more interesting. 
Even interesting presentations can grow long and boring. With an animated presentation or interesting quotes or other fun slides, you can bring people back from their boredom.

c.    It is easy to customize each slide to meet specific needs. 
Images on a slide can be decreased or increased in scale to fit your needs. It only takes a few clicks to insert, alter, and align images to create a needed visual representation. You can even use arrows, pointers, or other shapes to highlight key areas of information you want people to know about.

d.   It is a simple process to create follow-along hand-outs. 
You can print each slide directly from PowerPoint. Then you can copy those slides to become a helpful hand-out that can be given to each presentation participant.

e.    It is reasonably affordable for most professionals. 
Business plans for Office 365 start at just under $10 per month. This gives you 1 license to use on a computer of your choice. For $15 per month, you receive 5 computer licenses to use.

1.5.Disadvantages of power point presentation

a.    There’s always the chance of running into technical difficulties. 
Even tech-savvy individuals can run into presentation issues when the technology doesn’t work as intended. Maybe the computer stops working. Or you lose power to your outlet. Or the overhead display doesn’t work right. This can alter the positive first impression of a presentation very quickly.

b.   Slides with too much information on them can become overwhelming. 
Because there are so many options that can be included on a PowerPoint presentation, it can be easy to go overboard on the number of colors, sounds, shapes, and other items that can be used. By adding to many things, you can detract from the information that needs to be shared.

c.    It isn’t a substitute for what a presenter must do. 
Many who use PowerPoint tend to rely on the information on the slide instead of providing a learning narrative. It is easy to become too reliant on this software and forget that there is an actual presentation that needs to be completed.

d.   Costs are always ongoing. 
Because it is part of the Office 365 package, you no longer receive a proprietary software license for one specific cost. You must pay a monthly or annual subscription cost, which over time can add up to more than what the proprietary license once offered. You must also download the software to each computer, which consumes data that may be capped for some small business owners.

e.    Some participants may tune out your narrative.
If your PowerPoint is very detailed, some participants in your presentation may focus on your handouts and slides more than your actual narrative. This may make it difficult to make the call to action that you want participants to follow at the end of the day.

1.6.What is Hardware

Abbreviated as HW, hardware is best described as any physical component of a computer system that contains a circuit board, ICs, or other electronics. Whether it be a computer monitor, tablet or Smartphone; it's hardware.

Computer hardware refers to the physical parts of a computer and related devices. Hardware represents the physical and tangible components of a computer, i.e. the components that can be seen and touched.

Examples of Hardware are the following −

·        Input devices − keyboard, mouse, etc.

·        Output devices − printer, monitor, etc.

·        Secondary storage devices − Hard disk, CD, DVD, etc.

·        Internal components − CPU, motherboard, RAM, etc.

1.7.What is Software

Sometimes abbreviated as SW and S/W, software is a collection of instructions that enable the user to interact with a computer, its hardware, or perform tasks. Without software, most computers would be useless. For example, without your Internet browser software, you could not surf the Internet or read this page. Without an operating system, the browser could not run on your computer. The picture to the right shows a Microsoft Excel box, an example of a spreadsheet software program.

Software is often divided into three categories:

• System software serves as a base for application software. System software includes device drivers, operating systems (OSs), compilers, disk formatters, text editors and utilities helping the computer to operate more efficiently. It is also responsible for managing hardware components and providing basic non-task-specific functions. The system software is usually written in C programming language.

• Programming software is a set of tools to aid developers in writing programs. The various tools available are compilers, linkers, debuggers, interpreters and text editors.

• Application software is intended to perform certain tasks. Examples of application software include office suites, gaming applications, database systems and educational software. Application software can be a single program or a collection of small programs. This type of software is what consumers most typically think of as "software."

1.8.What is slide

A slide is a single page of a presentation. Collectively, a group of slides may be known as a slide deck. A slide show is an exposition of a series of slides or images in an electronic device or in a projection screen. In the digital age, a slide most commonly refers to a single page developed using a presentation program such as Microsoft PowerPoint, Apple Keynote, Apache OpenOffice or LibreOffice. It is also possible to create them with a document markup language, for instance with the LaTeX class Beamer.

A slide show or slide presentation is a series of pictures or pages of information (slides), often displayed on a large screen using a video projector. The first slide shows were done with pictures on pieces of glass, to be later replaced photographic film slides in the 1940s. As the technology improved, overhead projectors began to be used to project a picture on a screen and the slides were made with transparent slide media, about the size of a piece of paper. Printers could print text and images on this media or dry-erase markers could be used to write and draw on the media.

1.9.Principles of preparing Power Point

a.      Proximity

Proximity is a basic yet powerful design fundamental for grouping related elements together so they become one visual unit rather than several specific ones.

Purpose: rather than simply giving your viewers a linear arrangement of elements, proximity is like trying to organize your files in the same way a librarian would classify books according to the Dewey Decimal System. It serves as a guide to your viewers to the different parts of your message. Hence, by applying proximity, you are adding unity and continuity to your page. And proximity is not just relevant for texts but for all your design elements.

b.        Alignment

This is another crucial design principle to bring about a visual and readable design arrangement. Considering alignment is being conscious of where you place elements.

Purpose: Like proximity, proper alignment creates a sense of unity and cohesion to keep your design balanced and presentation style proper. Even if separate elements don’t appear physically close on a page and seem chaotic, aligning these can make them appear connected, related and unified with the rest of the information simply by their placement.

c.       Repetition

Also known as consistency, repetition is about repeating elements in a graphic design to add visual appeal and emphasize the style you want to keep in your presentation.

Purpose: Aside from aesthetics purposes, consistency draws your readers’ attention to certain elements.  Creating repetition enhances your design and the clarity of information. When used correctly, repetition allows your viewers to efficiently transfer knowledge to new contexts, learn new things faster and focus their attention on the relevant aspects of a task without being obtrusive.

d.     Contrast

What happens when you have two very different elements? This is where you apply contrast to your advantage. Contrast is when you juxtapose dissimilar elements in presentation style.

Purpose: contrast between design elements makes a presentation stand out and get noticed. It grabs your audience’s attention to the important parts of your presentation. Other than stirring up interest, contrast also aids in organizing information presented.

e.      White Spate

Many novices are afraid of leaving white space when designing. However, depending on the presentation and appropriateness, the use of white space can be very powerful and useful in design.  The principle of white space supports the idea that less is better because it allows you to simplify and focus on the essential aspects.

Purpose: White space can make your message stand out above the clutter found in many graphic designs. It breaks down information presented to more digestible pieces to reduce cognitive overload and allows you to convey a more direct message. White space can also serve as a form of contrast.

1.10.        Principles of presentation with power point

a.      Keep it Simple

Don’t let your message and your ability to tell a story get derailed by slides that are unnecessarily complicated, busy, or full. The less clutter you have on your slide, the more powerful your visual message will become.

b.     Limit bullet points & text

Instead of a copy of your PowerPoint slides, it is far better to prepare a written document which highlights your content from the presentation and expands on that content. Audiences are much better served receiving a detailed, written handout as a takeaway from the presentation, rather than a mere copy of your PowerPoint slides.

c.       Limit transitions & builds (animation)

Use object builds and slide transitions judiciously. Object builds (also called animations), such as bullet points, should not be animated on every slide. For transitions between slides, use no more than two-three different types of transition effects and do not place transition effects between all slides.

d.     Use high-quality graphics

Use high-quality graphics including photographs. Never simply stretch a small, low-resolution photo to make it fit your layout – doing so will degrade the resolution even further. Avoid using PowerPoint Clip Art or other cartoonish line art.

e.       Have a visual theme, but avoid using PowerPoint templates

You clearly need a consistent visual theme throughout your presentation, but most templates included in PowerPoint have been seen by your audience countless timesYou can then save the PowerPoint file as a Design Template (.pot) and the new template will appear among your standard Microsoft templates for your future use.

f.       Use appropriate charts

Always be asking yourself, “How much detail do I need?” Presenters are usually guilty of including too much data in their on-screen charts. There are several ways to display your data in graphic form; here are a few things to keep in mind:

g.      Use colour well

The right colour can help persuade and motivate. Studies show that colour usage can increase interest and improve learning comprehension and retention. You do not need to feel compelled to use this color scheme, though you may choose to use a variation of those colours.

h.     Choose your fonts well

Use the same font set throughout your entire slide presentation, and use no more than two complementary fonts (e.g., Arial and Arial Bold). Regardless of what font you choose, make sure the text can be read from the back of the room.

i.        Use video or audio

Using a video clip not only will illustrate your point better, it will also serve as a change of pace thereby increasing the interest of your audience. You can use audio clips (such as interviews) as well.

j.        Spend time in the slide sorter

People comprehend better when information is presented in small chunks or segments. By getting out of the Slide View and into the Slide Sorter view, you can see how the logical flow of your presentation is progressing.