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TIPS AND NOTES FOR USING SLIDE PRESENTATIONS:
1. A PREPARED HEART is 100% more effective than a PREPARED LESSON – Using a slide presentation like a ‘slight-of-hand’ trick to try to distract your class from realizing you haven’t studied does not work. (Trust me on this one. I can speak from full experience) Just like using a prepared lesson does not distract your class from sensing that you haven’t taken the time to prepare your heart to teach God’s Word.
… You can get along without a presentation (people have for years). You can get along without a prepared lesson (people do all the time). You cannot get along without a prepared heart. Passion Propels Postulation.
“People often forget everything you said… but they never forget how you made them feel.”
I’ve found it very true that people often forget everything you said… but they never forget how you made them feel. Maybe this is why we are to reprove, rebuke, exhort with ALL LONG SUFFERING (patience) and MEEKNESS… because it is the driving force behind the words we say.
a. Listening is work – Multiple studies re-enforce that focusing for an extended length of time on one particular topic can cause fatigue. The addition of a slideshow format may only SLIGHTLY reduce the fatigue by providing something other than a talking head to view.
b. Teach to the class, not the slide screen. – You’ve already seen the slides. You don’t need to watch them along with the class.
c. The slideshow is a COMPLEMENT to the lesson – Slides should illustrate and re-enforce the lesson… they should never BECOME the lesson. The ability to display illustrative photos, pictures, diagrams, and images are solely there to illustrate what is being taught. It is also a wonderful convenience to display contextual Scriptures, highlighting the portion of interest… but never are we to teach the Scriptures void of context.
d. Make the Slides Your Own – The lessons may be in a universal PDF format, but the SLIDE PRESENTATIONS are very much open for editing. If you find an slide irrelevant, offensive, sensitive, or not necessary, feel free to change it or simply delete it. If it gets too messed up, you can ALWAYS just re-download another one.
e. These WERE Someone Else’s Slides – Keep in mind, the SLIDE PRESENTATION was developed for MY Sunday School class. There are comments and illustrations that are relevant to us, in there. I’m simply sharing them in hopes that you can take the time and effort to use it as a template to modify for your own class.
f. What is Slide Redundancy? – It’s a technique. Each Presentation Software package has its own unique quirks and limitations. I chose to use LibreOffice because of the challenge and enjoyment of growing along with software development. In the past, I’ve watched PowerPoint develop from humble roots to the professional powerhouse it is today. I’ve also had some pretty extensive use with Appl$’s iWork suite, and it was, perhaps, one of the most polished presentation tools I’ve worked with. (unfortunately, it’s limited compatibility with anything non-appl$ rendered it non-usable for long-term use on a practical level for me… so I had to break the iChains and move to a more open/neutral platform.)
… That said, some slides may seem redundant, with only the notes changing. This is purposeful, as there are many cases where the slide simply needs to remain on display while the teacher covers multiple points or aspects about the topic at hand.
g. Slide Formats – While the presentation files found on this website are typically in the older *.PPT (Power Point) format for maximum compatability, please note that the SLIDE PRESENTATIONS are available in the following formats *.PPT/.PPTX (PowerPoint), *.ODP (LibreOffice/OpenOffice), and a few even in *.KEY (Keynote). I’ve elected these three as, while *.PPT is the most popular format, to convert back and forth from any of these seems to produce a great number of formatting issues. Unlike text documents, where 90% of the content remains and only about 10% needs adjusted, I’ve found for presentation files, its almost 50%/50% in relation to what is usable and what is downright illegible. Hopefully, by the time you download your presentation file, you will only need to adjust it about 10% or so to suite your Sunday School Class needs.
Due to the peculiar file-format limitations of WordPress (our current website host), I cannot post my *.ODP files directly. I must name them LessonName.odp.pptx (requiring you to manually delete the PowerPoint extension after downloading it) or enclosing it in a .zip file.
NOTE: If you would like access to the original *.ODP files creating in LibreOffice, just shoot me an email and I’d be happy to send them via Firefox Send.
LessonHUB 