Powerpoint and Google Docs: A Tale of Two Presentations

Can't anything be easy for me? I created a Powerpoint presentation a few weeks ago after the 8th grade speaking fiasco. I'm speaking to two 3rd grade classes tomorrow and I aim to be prepared.

I have never used Powerpoint before. Creating the presentation wasn't hard. I have no doubt it can be done better than I did it--but it's not embarrassing. The embarrassing thing is that I could not, for the life of me, figure out how to burn it to a CD. 

As the tears of frustration threatened to fall, I remembered Google Docs. I decided to START OVER (because that's not a waste of time!) and recreate the presentation in Docs. Now I know how to use BOTH programs.

By chance, I saw the teacher of the 3rd grade classes today. I told her I didn't have a CD but that I could access my presentation through the internet and Google Docs. "That's the problem," she said. "I don't always have an internet connection."

Back to square one. Not having Google Docs forced me to confront my Powerpoint frustrations. I improved my presentation in Docs, so I spent two hours making similar improvements in Powerpoint. I went a step further and learned how to bevel and shadow my shapes and words and apply animations. It ended up being a lot of fun.  Powerpoint rocks over Google Docs, my opinion.

I spent another hour trying to burn the CD. A monkey in a zoo could probably have beat my time on that one. I went to Windows Explorer and found the file. The teacher told me to drag it to the CD burner. I drug it all over the place and got errors and failures. Finally, I figured out how to do it in Powerpoint itself.

I won't try to explain it all to you and I don't think you want to take my advice on this anyway. But it's done! I figured out two presentation programs and learned how to burn a CD today!

My new presentation is colorful, animated, flashy and 3D. I can access it either from the internet or via CD--I'm covered for most classrooms. The graphic arts department of Dreamcatcher Books earned a bonus today!

To Do: If you are an author or teacher and you haven't made a graphic presentation yet--try it out. If I can do it, you can do it!

Jennifer Lynn Alvarez
Author of The Pet Washer
a novel for girls aged 9-12