by AJ George
While eLearning developers typically don't think of using PowerPoint when it comes to creating eLearning, PowerPoint presentations can, in fact, contain some slick interactivity. For instance, with the use of triggers you can control which elements appear on a slide, and where.
For example, if you wanted to give a presentation in which you quizzed your audience on file name extensions for different programs, triggers might prove quite useful. How useful? Let' create a PowerPoint slide that looks similar to the picture below. (I used WordArt to create each program extension shown below; and every program name is a separate text box. Your slide should contain 13 objects.)

The objective will be to have a program name appear when you click the program's extension. For example, the word Captivate will appear if the .cp extension is clicked.
About the author: AJ George, a cum laude graduate of Towson University, is IconLogic's lead Technical Writer and author of the book "PowerPoint 2007: The Essentials" and the soon-to-be released "PowerPoint 2008 for the Macintosh: The Essentials."
While eLearning developers typically don't think of using PowerPoint when it comes to creating eLearning, PowerPoint presentations can, in fact, contain some slick interactivity. For instance, with the use of triggers you can control which elements appear on a slide, and where.
For example, if you wanted to give a presentation in which you quizzed your audience on file name extensions for different programs, triggers might prove quite useful. How useful? Let' create a PowerPoint slide that looks similar to the picture below. (I used WordArt to create each program extension shown below; and every program name is a separate text box. Your slide should contain 13 objects.)

The objective will be to have a program name appear when you click the program's extension. For example, the word Captivate will appear if the .cp extension is clicked.
- Select the word Captivate.
- Choose Animations > Animations > Custom Animation.
- From the Custom Animation pane, click the Add Effect button and choose Entrance > More Effects.
- Choose any Entrance effect you'd like from the Add Entrance Effect dialog box and click OK.
- On the Custom Animation pane, click the arrow next to the TextBox entry to display the drop-down menu and choose Timing.
- From the Compress dialog box, ensure the Timing tab is brought forward and click the Triggers button.
- Select Start effect on click of and from the drop-down menu select the .cp Rectangle.
- Click OK.
- Press [Shift] [F5] on your keyboard to view the slide show and preview your work.
The word Captivate should not show up until you click the .cp WordArt graphic.
- Continue steps 1-8 for the remainder of the extensions.
***
About the author: AJ George, a cum laude graduate of Towson University, is IconLogic's lead Technical Writer and author of the book "PowerPoint 2007: The Essentials" and the soon-to-be released "PowerPoint 2008 for the Macintosh: The Essentials."
Thanks for the hot tips on creating PowerPoint eLearning presentations. Here's another good set of tips that I ran across for eLearning with PowerPoint: http://bit.ly/3XYk5N
Cheers,
Andy
MSFT Office Outreach
Posted by: Andy | January 15, 2010 at 05:17 PM