If you have been involved in giving PowerPoint presentations, either for business and marketing purposes or in an educational context, you will be well aware of the importance of good communication with your audience. Having to stay beside the computer in order to move the slides on can really hamper this, and you may often have wished that somebody would invent a wireless presentation clicker. Now somebody has done exactly that, and in fact, there are now a number of these devices on the market.

A wireless or remote PowerPoint clicker has the power to transform your presentations. You can now move around the room and engage with your audience in a much more personal way and there is no need to worry about tripping over the wires. This enables you to put your message across in a much more direct and effective way, as well as being able to judge whether you are holding the attention of your audience or not.

So what kind of features do you need to look for in a presentation clicker? This depends on how you are most likely to use it. Clickers vary in their distance capabilities from about 30 feet to about 100 feet. If your presentations are mainly in-house to your own office staff, or for teaching a class of students in a normal-sized classroom, the basic model should be sufficient. However if you are presenting in a large auditorium, for instance in a public trade show presentation, it is desirable to be able to move up to 100 feet from the front, and you will need a more powerful model. You can also find clickers that are compatible with technologies in several continents, in case you do international presentations on behalf of your company.

PowerPoint clickers differ very much in size, depending on the number of features they have. Some are small enough to conceal in the palm of your hand. This is helpful for connecting with your audience, as they are not aware of the device you are using, so it is a good idea to look at all the available features and consider whether you are really going to need them. However, one feature which presenters do find very helpful, enabled on some clickers, is the facility for soundless time alerts at preset intervals. This enables you to know how you are doing time wise, and to ensure that you have finished your presentation before your time runs out.

People who have used these clickers advise that it is a good idea to rehearse before your presentation, to make sure you know exactly how to use the device. It is also a good idea to have spare batteries with you, or put in fresh batteries before each presentation, or both there are few things worse than having your batteries run out halfway through. However, almost without exception, those who have used a PowerPoint clicker are immensely enthusiastic. It does wonders for your presentation style and, whether in teaching or in business, measurably improves your results.

Source by Jackie Ben