Guest Blogger: Stephanie Evergreen-Solving Four Slidedeck-to-eLearning Problems

I don’t usually have guest bloggers but I think Stephanie has a great perspective on webinars and developing online learning so I asked her if she would do a brief piece. I think she did a wonderful job! Thanks Stephanie.

Solving Four Slidedeck-to-eLearning Problems

By Stephanie Evergreen, PhD

I host or give about 70 webinars per year, with multiple collaborators, on varying platforms, with differing degrees of success. In my usual style of confessional blogging, here I will share with you the four biggest problems in transitioning a slidedeck to an eLearning platform that I have experienced or witnessed, along with ways to solve these issues.

1. The webinar drags.
   In face-to-face presentations or classrooms, the charismatic presenter (that’s you, believe it or not) carries most of the burden of engagement. You are moving about the room, using emphasizing hand gestures, conveying expression in your face. That engagement is significantly reduced in many webinar platforms, where the bulk of the engagement rests on the slides. Thus, delivery at the old 2-minutes-per-slide pace is a surefire way to send the audience off to check their email.

Solution: Quicken the pace by breaking up the slide content. This solution doesn’t require a radical slide makeover. Simply break up one slide with four bullet points into four slides with one bullet point each.  I’ve demonstrated this process, which I ironically call the Slow Reveal, over at my blog. This method of presenting prevents people from reading ahead and losing interest while also increasing the frequency of the appearance of new slide material.

1. It’s too text-based.
   People are pained when the presenter reads the words off the slides. People can read seven times faster than they can speak. This means the audience has finished scanning the slide content and is on to perusing their Twitter feed before the presenter is finished reading the same set of bullets.

Solution: Swap pictures for text. This involves a bit more of a radical change to existing slidedecks, but it is worth it to keep audience attention and increase their ability to remember the content. Here is one method for transitioning from typical slides to those that are more image-based.

1. The presenter used animation.

In eLearning platforms that require the presenter to upload slides, animation or slide transitions usually do not transfer. In platforms that operate via screensharing, animation or transitions slow down significantly. Either way, the intended impact is lost.

 Solution: Eliminate animation. Most of the time, animation is simply decoration that distracts the audience from the content. We don’t want them thinking “Oooh, look at those swooshing words,” we want them thinking about the meaning of the words themselves. The only time animation is effective is when the Appear feature is used to reveal one point at a time. Follow the first solution listed here to see how to make that happen on your own slidedeck.

1. The fonts look wonky.

When uploading a slidedeck to an eLearning platform, font fidelity is often at stake. eLearning platforms will substitute unrecognizable fonts in your slidedeck for ones it has stored in its system. The result is text pushed off the end of the slide, running past the borders of text boxes, causing panic attacks for presenters.

Solution: Embed the fonts in the slidedeck before uploading or emailing them. This procedure carries the font files with the slidedeck and usually maintains the slide’s integrity. On occasion, this still has not worked for me. In that case, selected text boxes were still being uncooperative so I right-clicked on those rebels and saved them as pictures, which I then placed onto the slide.

Here’s hoping your next attempt at translating your slides for a web-based presentation goes more smoothly than some of mine.

Stephanie Evergreen is eLearning Initiatives Director at the American Evaluation Association and runs a data communications firm, Evergreen Evaluation. She confesses her mistakes and insights on Twitter, her well-read blog, and in her forthcoming book published by Sage.