Hands Demonstrative Sessions on AI Tools - Day 2

Summary

The session demonstrated ways to create presentations with ChatGPT, Gamma, and Microsoft PowerPoint, shifting the workshop’s planned focus from prompt-engineering theory to hands-on AI tool demonstrations.

Finding and preparing source material

• The instructor showed how to find openly available educational material through OER Commons. Users can search by topic and filter by material type, such as textbooks, lessons, lecture notes, or case studies.
• For a selected book or resource, the demonstration covered viewing it online or downloading it, then saving relevant pages as a PDF. The instructor also suggested using scanned notes or other documents as source material.
• Creative Commons licensing was introduced as a way to identify material that may be reused. The session emphasized checking the license rather than assuming that all online content is free to use.

ChatGPT presentation workflow

The instructor demonstrated a source-based workflow:

1. Upload a PDF, Word document, image, or notes to ChatGPT.
2. Provide context—for example, that you are a teacher preparing a presentation—and specify the topic and requirements.
3. Set constraints such as the number of slides, points per slide, and whether to include real-world examples. The example prompt requested 15 slides with five points each.
4. Ask ChatGPT to generate a downloadable PPTX and specify a 16:9 widescreen aspect ratio.

The first output may be a plain presentation. The instructor demonstrated applying a theme through PowerPoint’s Design menu. Images can be added by asking ChatGPT to generate prompts for slide-specific visuals, creating images from those prompts, and inserting them into the deck.

A separate approach generates complete slide images in an infographic style. The instructor noted that this approach is not editable like a normal PowerPoint deck: content changes may require another prompt, and animations are not available.

Gamma presentation workflow

The Gamma tutorial covered three ways to start a presentation:

• Generate: Enter a topic or title, choose the slide count, language, text density, theme, and image style, then review or edit the outline before generating. The demonstration indicated that the free option was limited to 10 slides.
• Paste in text: Add existing notes and choose whether Gamma should create an outline, summarize the text, or preserve it. Then select design and image options.
• Import a file or URL: Upload a PowerPoint, Word file, PDF, or Google Drive file, or provide a link for Gamma to turn into a presentation.

Gamma also offers per-slide AI editing options, such as simplifying or expanding text, adding images or charts, and making a slide more visual. Presentations can be shared by link or exported as an editable PowerPoint.

The instructor recommended using existing notes or source files rather than relying only on a title, and stressed that users should review AI-generated content.

Demonstrations and participant tasks

The session’s practical activities included:

• Finding and downloading a suitable OER resource.
• Creating slide content from selected pages or personal notes.
• Generating and styling a PowerPoint, adding relevant visuals, and trying Gamma.
• Preparing a presentation of at least five slides on a chosen subject and sharing it with the workshop group.

The opening also briefly reviewed AI concepts—including John McCarthy, large language models, GANs, and Suno AI—but the main focus was presentation creation.

Main speaker and contributors

• A. Vimal Gerald, the instructor, led the demonstrations.
• Participants and the technical team contributed through chat responses and session support.