Three fourths of the time students spend on this PowerPoint presentation should focus on planning.

First, decide with students what the topic of the presentation will be and what information they want to include. Assign to each student or group of students the responsibility of researching some part of the topic and/or locating some portion of the necessary information. Emphasize to students the importance of the research portion of the project. If necessary, review with students the guidelines for Evaluating Online Information.

After students have completed their research, have them write the most important information they've found on index cards, one fact or concept to a card. Students then work together to arrange the cards in a logical order.

Decide with students what photographs or artwork will best illustrate the information on each card. Find or create those images and save them to your network or hard drive.

Make a PowerPoint storyboard for each index card.

Next: Terms to know.