Best way to prepare a presentation?

[KickAssAngel]

I'm not truly an academic - I teach middle school in the US and have an MA.

But - I've had a presentation accepted for a conference in November. It's quite a big conference. It's for teachers of private schools in the entire mid-west. I don't know how many attend but several thousand. The number of people in my presentation could be anything from none to 200 ish - most likely around 50 ish.

So - I really want to do well!

I have powerpoint and/or google slides. I want to be able to have notes to back up my main points, but obviously don't want slides with so much detail that they're unreadable.

Annoyingly, there may not be any internet during the presentation (or in our rooms, so no last minute fact-checking or adding links etc)

I will need to use my own laptop (Air). I have no idea how the venue will be showing presentations, and I'm in the first set on the first morning, so bugger all chance of seeing how others are doing it and knowing what to expect. When I did presentations for my MA, I would have the notes showing for my slideshow, but the audience just saw the slides. That would be ideal, but the Uni had all the rooms set up to do that. I don't know about this venue. Where I work, we don't have that as an option - what's on my laptop screen is what the audience see. So, I don't even know if I can set this up in advance or how to do it in 0 minutes (I may not even get into the room much before people arrive).

I'm thinking I'll need to use Power Point, and have a load of paper notes as the only guarantee that I can run the slide show and still read my notes.

Any better ideas?

There is a notes facility on Powerpoint that allows you to make notes under the slide, and then print it with the slide at the top and the notes typed underneath- one tip, increase the font size of the notes if you can or they will be very small and hard to read. That means you have one set of things to hold to look at whilst presenting.

I then practice 10x so I don't need to look at them!

I have powerpoint and/or google slides
Use ppt. Much more commonly used.

I want to be able to have notes to back up my main points, but obviously don't want slides with so much detail that they're unreadable
Ppt has functionality that allows the presenter to see notes but not the audience.

Annoyingly, there may not be any internet during the presentation (or in our rooms, so no last minute fact-checking or adding links etc)
Shouldn't matter. You can download any info you want to show and link from the presentation. Otherwise just work round this limitation.

I will need to use my own laptop (Air). I have no idea how the venue will be showing presentations, and I'm in the first set on the first morning, so bugger all chance of seeing how others are doing it and knowing what to expect
You'll be able to hook your laptop up to the AV screen. But save the presentation to a memory stick in case there's any incompatibility

When I did presentations for my MA, I would have the notes showing for my slideshow, but the audience just saw the slides. That would be ideal, but the Uni had all the rooms set up to do that. I don't know about this venue
It's not the rooms that we're set up. Standard Ppt does this.

Where I work, we don't have that as an option - what's on my laptop screen is what the audience see. So, I don't even know if I can set this up in advance or how to do it in 0 minutes (I may not even get into the room much before people arrive
Contact the venue/organisers and ask them what the drill is for presenters.

I'm thinking I'll need to use Power Point, and have a load of paper notes as the only guarantee that I can run the slide show and still read my notes
Nothing wrong with that.

Heartnumber - thank you for the response, and Summerswallow.

I'm going to use powerpoint. Where I teach we use google slides/docs etc ALL the time but I'm sure I'll cope with something different.

Some of my 'notes' are quite long - they have my quote & citations written out so that I get them right, but having played around, I think I can cope.

The venue is brand new - only just been built (not even sure if it's open yet) so no one knows exactly how this will work. I suspect (hope) that we're getting a super cheap deal on this to get new business.

I'm going to go with it loaded on my laptop, on a drive AND on paper.

I'm just really frustrated at not having internet - I want to link to web sites and show resources etc. Now I'll just have to show screen shots rather than link to the website & what is available.

I know I am not being helpful in that I don't have suggestions, but FWIW I would be excited to hear your presentation, because so many I see have nothing like this level of professionalism dedicated to the presentation, and it really makes a difference.

What about using prezi?

Ah sorry. Just saw - no internet. My bad.

You can use Prezi offline.

LRD - One of my finest moments was a presentation about the movie Scott Pilgrim where I had used the scene at the end of the fight where Scott defeats Gideon, who explodes into a cloud of money.

I managed to time it so that my final line was something about Scott making the money shot, then the scene (which was running silently) showed the money raining down, then the professor's beeper went to show that I had hit the end of my time.

I'm obsessive about doing presentations well, it's the only way I don't get too scared to speak, hence me doing this now, almost 2 months early. I can wing it in from of middle schoolers, no problem, but speaking to adults is so completely different.

See, I think that Prezzi looks a little gimmicky, and it makes me travel sick!

But is it what all the cool kidz do these days?

What the others have said.

And save your POwerPOint to a USB stick. You can then plug tat in directly to whatever computer is in the room.

PS I hate Prezi. It's pretty but when I ask students to send me their slides from a presentation so I can use them as part of what I assess, Prezi does not work in that way. I don't think it's got as much functionality as full-fat Ppt. And don't you have to be online for it to work?

And it makes me a wee bit seasick. Glad I'm not the only one.

PowerPoint is a much better prospect: fewer chances for things to go wrong (and for people to get seasick).

People are right that the presenter's notes function is standard, but it doesn't always work. It depends if the screen mirroring has been set up correctly. I've been caught out on this before, so always print my notes. Like pp has said, make the text size large enough to be readable (about 18pt) and what I do then is print the notes view as a PDF, then print that at 2 pages per A4. That way it takes up less paper (less shuffling).

I bet though that by the time you've cut your text down to fit a notes page at 18pt, you'll know it off by heart.

Thanks for that, imposter. I will def. print everything out clearly, all numbered with relevant highlights.

Worst case scenario is that I read from the notes in a boring monotone.

Hopefully I can manage a bit more than that. Imposter syndrome is exactly how I feel though, which is stupid. I'm educated, intelligent and speak in public every day! Last night I spoke to over 50 parents, who can be a tough crowd, and was fine.

Of course you will be fine! Come back and tell us so.

I think prezi is rather looked down upon now, it's usually used poorly and the sickness thing is really awful for some.

Prezi makes me seasick too!