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Tech Standards: Creating Keynote Presentations Part 2

Macy, with Challenge Solutions, shares a video tutorial with her tips for students learning to create a Keynote presentation.

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Macy, with Challenge Solutions, shares her tips and tricks on how she creates Keynote presentations on her iPad with VoiceOver. Challenge Solutions is a group of high school and college students who are blind or low vision who provide lessons about life and technology. (See Challenge Solutions: A Group of Blind Students Podcasting/Video Blogging post.) Macy regularly creates Keynote presentations as required for her general education classes. Keynote is the Apple version of PowerPoint; if desired, Keynote presentations can be exported and shared as PowerPoint presentations. Presentations are one of the most powerful tools for disseminating information!

In her excellent video tutorial, Macy shares why she prefers to create her presentations on an iPad and how she uses the Outline View to efficiently create her slides. The first video in this Tech Standards: Creating Keynote Presentations Part 1, was designed to introduce Keynote presentations to young students using content appropriate for kindergarten and early elementary students.  Part 2 – Macy’s video tutorial – is geared for students who are creating Keynote presentations as a tool to showcase the content of the presentation. Remember, students learn how to use technology until 3rd grade; after 3rd grade, they use technology to access learning.

Importance of Presentations

Presentations (PowerPoints, Keynotes, and Google Slides) are effective multimedia tools. In the business world, presentations are often used as a persuasive tool for businesses and a way to manage time/meetings wisely. Simple presentations turn boring and fact-filled meetings (and classroom lessons!) into a more engaging and interactive way to convey ideas, facts and stories. The main purpose of most presentations is to enable the user to create dynamic informational slides through the use of text, graphics, and animation. Presentations in the classroom add a new dimension to learning, allowing educators to explain abstract concepts and clarify concepts while accommodating all learning styles. Students in today’s classrooms use presentations to enhance their learning, to apply their knowledge, and help facilitate their delivery structure in a professional manner. Using presentations can also reduce a student presenter’s anxiety by drawing the viewer’s eyes to the slides and away from the student. And, as always, classroom teaching styles should mirror business best practices and skills, preparing students for the world of work.

In addition, presentations can be an effective way to share information face-to-face or in a video conference – ideal for people working from home and for remote learning.

Students in 21st Century classrooms are creating presentations (Keynotes, PowerPoints, Google Slides) as part of their course assignments; presentations are now embedded into every core subject. 

Outline View

In Outline View, Macy types in her content for her Keynote and the text is automatically added to the slides. Students who are blind or low vision can use Outline View as an efficient way to create presentations and as an easy way to review content in a presentation created by someone else.

In the video below, Macy with Challenge Solutions, shares a Keynote video tutorial about creating Keynote presentations on an iPad running VoiceOver. She discusses the various buttons and features when creating a Keynote presentation. Macy shares hints and tips of how she creates a Keynote presentation using Outline View.

By Diane Brauner

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