PowerPoint, the popular presentation software, can be used to produce unique educational materials that are accessible to more students than most off the shelf products. This paper explains how an author can create a PowerPoint presentation that allows a switch user to scan through a set of "hotspots". These hot spots consist of visual cues of various possible shapes that appear and disappear in a sequence. The hotspots can provide auditory cueing, and once selected can play a sound file, navigate to a different slide, run a macro, or open a different application. This approach requires the author to start building their PowerPoint presentation using a template that already has all the necessary "macros" that support the scanning process. The author does not need to know, or do any programming. For your switch user, you will need an adapted mouse. Minimally, the adapted mouse should allow you to plug in an ability switch, like an Ablenet Jellybean switch, which will cause a left mouse button click to occur when the user presses the switch.

I have added a setup slide to the template used to create scanning shape based slide shows. The Setup Slide must be the first slide in the show because it sets crucial parameters. From the setup slide, facilitators can control the following:

1. Users can choose the type of auditory cueing the user experiences.
2. Users can specify the scan time.
3. Users can choose from six different visual scan indicators that they have emedded in their slide show including various arrows, an oval, or a star.
4. The setup page offers a means for revealing hidden scan indicators. This feature is useful when editing a slide show.
5. You can choose a 2-switch scan where left mouse click moves the scan indicator, and right click selects the highlighted indicator.

If you already know how to build a PowerPoint presentation that has pictures, sound files, AutoShapes, and Action Settings in it, then you can easily add scanning capability. (I will assume that you have those skills already. If not, please review PowerPoint Basics.

You will need a Windows 9X or newer operating system running on a 100Mhz, but preferably faster computer with a sound card. You need PowerPoint 97 or newer for Windows. Set the "color palette " from the "Settings" tab in the "Display" Control Panel to "High Color (16 bit)". Settings lower (256 colors) can cause excessive flickering, or higher (24 bit) may crash PowerPoint depending on your computer. If you have some flickering check your display settings, or try a faster computer.

To see Scanning Shapes in action open the PowerPoint presentation named "scanningSample2.ppt ". As the presentation opens you may get a macro virus warning. You must choose "enable macros" for the scanning shapes technology to work.(I will not post any files with potentially dangerous macros, but I encourage you to use your virus protection software to scan any file for potentially damaging viruses.) From the menu bar select Slide Show, and then View Show.

The first slide that appears will allow you to establish various settings. You can choose a scan with no auditory cues, a cue using the system beep, and/or a cue that uses any sound file you want. Simultaneously playing the system beep and a sound you choose for the scan cue will produce varying results with different computers, and perhaps with different versions of PowerPoint. In general, use one or the other. In this case make sure "Beep" is checked and the "No Auditory Cues" is unchecked, and we will see what happens.

Use the "Increase" or "Decrease" buttons to alter the scan interval. Shorter than 2 seconds is not recommended.

Select a shape from the menu of shapes to determine which will provide visual scan cues. In this sample all shapes are supported on the second slide. In this example only "Ovals" will let you scan to the third slide, so be sure to view the oval scan indicators.

At this time do not click the "Show" button. This feature is useful for editing scanning slide shows by allowing you to reveal all the hotspots of a selected type on a scanning slide.

Click the "On to the show" button to view the first scanning slide. Position the mouse pointer over the scan button and click to begin the scan. It is important to leave the mouse positioned over the scan button. Clicking objects other than the scan button after the scan starts may cause an error message to appear. If the error happens just choose the "End" button. After you have read through this document check out the "Action Settings" for the objects that appear on the slides to see how I did things.

Click the scan button to start and stop the scan. To navigate back to the Setup Slide, after stopping the scan move the mouse pointer off of the scan button towards the lower left corner of the screen. A small transparent button will appear there. Click on it and from the menu that appears select "Previous", or "Go…" and select "Slide 1".

The scanning effect is accomplished by controlling whether a selected shape is visible or not from a Visual Basic script (also referred to as a macro.) The presentation user clicks on a special Command Button called the scan button that should appear on every slide for which you expect scanning to occur, and in the same place. Once clicked the scan button initiates a scanning process that renders each shape visible, one at a time. The second click on the special scan button causes whatever "Action Settings" for the visible shape to be activated.

In brief, you will plan your presentation. You then open the blank template (scanShapes2b.ppt), and duplicate the second slide for each slide in your presentation. Put whatever pictures you want on pages. Record any sound files you want. Create and format the hot spots on each page. Assign Action Settings to your hot spots. Run your project. Finally save the project giving it a new name.

1. Open the PowerPoint presentation named scanShapes2b.ppt

If the macro warning appears, choose "Enable Macros." The first slide is the previously described setup slide. On the second slide you will see a Command Button, the scan button, that appears on the lower middle edge of the presentation. This button starts and stops scanning. If this button appears at the same location on all slides then the switch user, who will need an mouse adapted to allow the switch to issue a mouse click, needs only to have the mouse cursor pointed inside this button on this second slide. The mouse cursor will be correctly positioned on any subsequent slide.

2. With the second slide visible in the Slide View of PowerPoint from the menu bar select Insert and Duplicate Slide.

Repeat this to create as many scanning slides you expect to need for your presentation. A scan button will be automatically placed on each page.

3. From the View menu item make sure Toolbars, Drawing is checked.

This will make the Drawing Tools including the AutoShapes visible.

4. You can import any picture(s) you want, place any navigation buttons, other AutoShapes, set the background color etc.

You place any desired AutoShapes, and import any pictures you want first. This way when you create your hot spots they will appear over these objects.

5. To add a scanning oval (for other allowable scanning shapes see step 9): At the bottom of the page you will see a small oval to the right of the word "AutoShape." Click on the oval shape and then drag, to draw, an oval over the first object you want included in the scan sequence.

Ovals will be scanned in the order they were created. At this point don't concern yourself with the appearance of you ovals.

6. Right-click on the newly created hot spot and select Format AutoShape. Click the Colors and Lines tab. Set Fill to None. Set Line to a nice bright color and the line thickness to at least 5 points, or whatever you think your users will see.

This makes your oval into a hollow frame that allows users to see what is behind it.

7. Use copy and paste to reproduce the hotspot. Drag the copies over any picture, AutoShape, or other object you wish to include in the scan sequence.

Remember that the ovals will be scanned in the order that they were created.

8. Record any sounds you want for when the hot spot appears (auditory cue) if desired, and for when a hot spot is selected (messages).

Be sure to give your sound files names that adequately describe the contents.

9. You can use any of the other allowable shapes as scan cues by selecting one of the following options from the AutoShapes menu at the lower left side of the editing screen: (From Block Arrows)- Left Arrow, Right Arrow, Up Arrow, Down Arrow (From Stars and Banners )- the Five Pointed Star.

Repeat steps 5 through 8 for any shapes you wish to add as visual cues. You may wish not to make your shape hollow as suggested in step 6.

10. Right-click on each hot spot and click Action Settings. Set the desired actions for that hot spot.

The Mouse Click Tab will define what happens when a hot spot is selected. The Mouse Over Tab defines what happens when the oval appears during the scan.

For an auditory cue scan click the Mouse Over Tab can check the "Play Sound" box and select a sound from the drop down menu.

For a message playback click the Mouse Click Tab can check the "Play Sound" box and select a sound from the drop down menu.

You can also use other Action Settings like "Hyperlink to:", or "Run Program:" or "Run Macro:". By hyperlinking to a file type for which Windows has an association identified you can open that file in its appropriate application. For example, linking to an html document may open it in Internet Explorer. It is a good idea to use relative links for any hyperlinking, especially if you plan on relocating you slide show and other files you plan on linking to.

11. View your slide show. Allow every item to be scanned once.

The shapes will be made invisible as the scan progresses. On the second scanning cycle each shape will appear and disappear in sequence.

12. Use Save As… to give your project an appropriate name, and preserving your original blank template.

I would encourage you to use Save As… early in your project development so as to protect your work in progress. After giving your project a name then you can just use Save to preserve it.

If you have used AutoShapes in your existing presentation, you may want to change them to something else, or they might be in the scan sequence. Here is how to add the scanning capability:

1. Open your presentation. From the Tools menu select Macros, Visual Basic Editor.
2. Right click the folder icon on the right side of the display that says Microsoft PowerPoint Objects. Select Import File… or select Import File from the File menu.
3. A file browsing box will open. Locate the file included with the sample PowerPoint presentations ending in .bas like scanModule2b.bas, and click Open. This will add the scanning routines to your presentation.
4. At this point you could copy the Command Button from one of the sample scanning presentations and paste it onto all of the slides you want to have scanning. You will need to edit the Command Button to get it to start and stop the scan (see Item C.) Or, you can do make your own Command Button (see Item D.) Command Buttons are special PowerPoint objects that will always appear on top of the other stuff you used to decorate your slide. They react to mouse actions and provide a means to interact with the Visual Basic routines that are embedded in the slide show.

1. Right-click on the Command Button that will be your scan button that has a picture that looks like an ability switch.
2. Select Command Button, Edit Command Button. This will open the Visual Basic Editor, and will also open a window with the CommandButton1 object code visible in it.
3. Look for the line that says Private Sub CommandButton1_Click(). On the line directly below where you see End Sub paste the following code from "Private" to "End Sub"

Private Sub CommandButton1_MouseDown(ByVal Button As Integer, ByVal Shift As Integer, ByVal X As Single, ByVal Y As Single)

scanSoundOn = scanBeepSetting

If stepScanner Then

If (Button = 1) Then hilightNext Else switch2Select

Else: doScan

End If

End Sub

 

4. Close the Visual Basic Editor and Save your slideshow.

1. Make sure that from the View menu Toolbars, Control Toolbox is checked. A small toolbar palette will appear.
2. Next click on the small gray rectangle in the Controls Toolbox to select the Command Button tool.
3. Draw a Command Button on your slide.
4. Edit the Command Button appearance by right clicking the Command Button and selecting Preferences. Adjust the preferences.
5. Repeat creating Command Buttons

Please contact me (preferably via email) if you have any questions or suggestions.

Thanks,

Jim Luther

jamjolu@hotmail.com