Presentation Skills Suite

One of the most important and useful skills you can learn in your career is the ability to present your ideas in front of others and obtain buy-in. Build good presentation skills step-by-step and learn to confidently persuade audiences of any size as you conquer any fears you may have about public speaking. Then take your PowerPoint skills from ordinary to extraordinary by mastering the use of Microsoft PowerPoint 2016 and learning to create professional-quality slide presentations that will hold your audience's attention.

Finally, you'll learn the power of humor and how you can use it to transform interactions with others.

Study online with Instructor moderated discussion boards.

Select a start date for each course below:

1

Mastering Public Speaking

December 17, 2025

January 14, 2026

February 11, 2026

March 18, 2026

2

Introduction to Microsoft PowerPoint 2016

You can become an effective public speaker! In this fun and hands-on course, you'll find out how to talk confidently and persuasively to both large audiences and small groups. You'll learn how to plan and deliver your presentations skillfully and how to manage one of the most common public speaking barriers—fear.

As you build your skills step-by-step, you'll find out how to present a short or long speech, how to handle questions and manage conflict in meetings, and even how to shine in a job interview. You'll get tips for training your voice and learn how to use both verbal and nonverbal communication effectively.

By the time you finish this course, you'll have an entire set of skills you can use on the job, in social settings, and in any other situation where you need to communicate with ease and authority. Along the way, you'll explore many real-world examples and have lots of opportunities to practice your new skills.

Introduction to Microsoft PowerPoint 2016

Take your PowerPoint presentations from ordinary to extraordinary! In these lessons, you'll learn how to use Microsoft PowerPoint 2016 (now available through Office 365) to create professional-quality slide presentations that grab and hold your audience's attention from start to finish.

You'll start by learning how to plan and create dazzling slide presentations using a variety of slide and layout masters that make global changes to your presentation in a snap. You'll also see how to embellish your slides with pictures, shapes, Word Art, and Smart Art, as well as multimedia effects such as animations, slide transitions, audio, video, and text and object hyperlinks.

And that's just the start! You'll explore the options on the PowerPoint Ribbon, including the new Tell Me feature (an enhanced Help feature) and Smart Lookup, which allows you to look up definitions of a word or phrase. You'll explore the File menu options and Backstage View, and learn how to print slides, handouts, and even an outline. And you'll discover the best view for creating and editing your slides and running your presentations, including how to use Reading View to proof your work.

You'll have fun creating a PowerPoint photo album with your digital pictures, and become acquainted with One Drive and PowerPoint Online to save, edit, and share your presentations online. Finally, you'll add versatility to your PowerPoint skills as you learn how to use the Share and Export commands to save presentations as PDF files, videos, and more.

Whether you're a beginner or an experienced user, these lessons will teach you how to turn simple slides into a polished and exciting presentation that will make your message memorable. If you want to take your PowerPoint skills to a higher level, this is the course for you!

Get Funny

The ability to create humor is a skill many people don't have, yet wish they did. If you're interested in learning how to come up with jokes or witticisms on the fly, punch up dull material for an audience, or make a living as a comedy writer, this course will get you going.

Your instructor, an experienced comedy writer and working actress, will guide you through a wide range of comedic sources. You'll learn how to write a one-liner, use physical humor, target your audience, find the humor in everyday events and much,…