Presenting (Visual Information)

Visual aids are enhancements to a presentation that can engage the audience, provide additional information, and reinforce key points. Years ago, equipment like overhead projectors and posters provided the common visual aids; however, with the evolution of multimedia, enhancements like PowerPoint slide shows and portable digital projectors for showing animated clips have become common.
Visual aids can help you to reach your objectives by providing emphasis to whatever is being said. Clear pictures multiply the students' level of understanding of the material presented, and they should be used to reinforce your message, clarify points, and create excitement.
Visual aids involve your students and require a change from one activity to another: from hearing to seeing. With pictures, the concepts or ideas that you present are no longer simply words - but words plus images. If students don't clearly grasp the spoken word, a visual may help them to better absorb information. Visuals can help to make complex information more understandable. They provide a change from just listening, and pictures typically stimulate interest more easily than words.
A Background on Visual Aids
The use of visual aids for presenting, coaching, and teaching has been around since the 1920s and 1930s, consisting of film strips, glass slides and physical pass-around objects. Several universities have amassed catalogs of visual aid products that trace the history of using visual literacy and visual education to reinforce main content. Not all people are auditory learners who can synthesize information from lectures and speeches. Many learners are visual learners who respond better to still or moving images.
Statistics show that three hours after a presentation only 70 percent of people can remember content presented verbally. The impact of visual aids on the retention of content in a speech is even more impressive after three days. Sixty-percent of listeners can remember visually enhanced content, compared with only 10 percent remembering exclusively verbal presentations.
A study conducted by Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Co. (3M) at the University of Minnesota, it was concluded that people who use visual aids are 43% more persuasive than those who don't. The study also established that visuals can improve:
• communication effectiveness
• student's perceptions of the presenter
• speaker’s confidence2
The use of visual aids, then, can be essential to all presentations. Without them, the impact of your presentation may leave the students shortly after your presentation. By preparing a presentation with visual aids that reinforce your main ideas, you will likely reach your students far more effectively.