Some Fun With PowerPoint

(Note:  Some suggestions in this post may involve using images for which the intellectual property is owned by an organisation or individual, such as DC Comics and Fox Network.  I believe that the activities I am suggesting here assist in promoting these properties, but the owners may see this differently.)

Photos and diagrams are often used in slideshows to communicate a message.  There are other useful ways to get your message across.  Cartoons are great popular culture, and when used appropriately can send a clear message, although sometimes only to those 'in the know'.

The Phantom is a great image of a mystical, helpful loner.  However, without a knowledge of the cartoon, this message would be missed in seeing this image.


These 'tools' appeal to kids of all ages:

The Addletters Bart Simpson Generator

Image source: www.addletters.com; copyright Fox Network

If you prefer the clouds of The Simpsons' title screen, you can use The Addletters The Simpsons Title Screen Generator.

There are many of these 'generators' on the web, including at www.txt2pic.com (where I found the 'for dummies' image generator I used below, and a cool sticky note generator) and www.says-it.com.  For many, many more, see The Generator Blog

Image source: www.txt2pic.com; probable copyright Wiley Publishing

If you would like to be a bit more creative, you can 'write a cartoon', for which there are a number of tools, from doing your own text in the last cell of a Dilbert strip to your own captions for the popular How Projects Really Work strip.  

Finally, a tool that can be used for fun while giving insight is the 'wordle'.  There are a few sites for generating these, but my favourite is wordle.net.

The words in my first three posts as a wordle (source: www.wordle.net)

I have used Wordles to summise a topic, reinforce key terminology, and to extract common words and phrases from brainstorming and other high input volume sessions.

...Geoff
www.performancepeople.com.au