Skip to main content

Presenting and Presentations

By
Sharing knowledge, emerging from transition and change successfully and growth take time and attention, precious commodities. How is that done most efficiently and effectively? Here are some possible strategies we might try for ourselves, and teachers might try with their students.

Pecha kucha is a strategy for sharing the perspectives of multiple contributors – 20 slides, 20 seconds each. When the slides are over the talk is over and discussion begins…or not. The phenomenon has become popular across the nation and internationally. http://www.pecha-kucha.org/

Why? Because to do it successfully one must distill the body of content to its essence and present it in a concise, logical and engaging way. The presentation must adhere to the timing of the automatically advancing slides, so words must be chosen carefully.

Direct your point.

Presentation experts Garr Reynolds http://www.garrreynolds.com/Presentation/slides.html and Guy Kawasaki http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2005/12/the_102030_rule.html#axzz1UiwXeTfz have emphasized the importance of using “emotional intelligence” to reach the listener. A review of Kawasaki’s book “Enchantment” says “ we need enchantment most when aspiring to lofty, idealistic goals as well as when making especially difficult decisions, overcoming entrenched habits, defying a crowd, or proceeding despite delayed or nonexistent feedback.”

They advocate high visual impact and only as many words on the slide as needed to make the point. Kawasaki says the message is in the narrative. An effective presentation can change their understanding, their perceptions, and with sufficient impact, result in action.

PowerPoint (or Keynote) Effects

The delivery mode is often PowerPoint, initially praised, then scorned as a presentation medium. Its animations and transitions are often criticized as distracting. However, take a look at some of the new effects that can, if not over or inappropriately used, create high impact with the right graphics. Advanced PowerPoint Effects #1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxLkEfP3syg&feature=related

Share it
Sometimes it's a good idea to share what you create so it's reach is not limited to the time, space and persons in the moment of delivery. A free, easy source four recording and delivering video screen captures up to 5 minutes, then distributing them as a link is Jing by Techsmith http://www.techsmith.com/jing Many apps export directly to YouTube, Screenflow 3.0 for the Mac ($99) exports to Vimeo, as well asYouTube, which Camtasia and other apps do.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Schools of the Future: Acquiring and Representing Knowledge

By
This year's Schools of the Future conference was an information-rich event. When we think of the future, more than a few of us probably also think of technology. That association certainly carries over in the interpretation of the conference title Schools of the Future . Indeed, many topics besides educational technology were covered; however, the technological advances were a strong highlight at the conference in my view. As mentioned in one of Cassie's previous posts , there are online classes everywhere. The first few links on my list reference ways to learn on your own (i.e., ways to acquire knowledge). The second set of links refer to ways of representing knowledge. **Note:  All icons link to the affiliated website.  Academic Earth has hundreds of free online lectures from prominent university professors, including Carnegie Mellon, Stanford, The University of Houston, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, MIT, Michigan State, Princeton, Rice, UCLA, UCSF, and the list
Post a Comment
Read more

Geotagging

By
A "wouldn't it be nice" idea that's been around a while is the ability to tag a map with images that are linked to more information about the site. Kelly C suggested it as a way for students to share knowledge about a cultural/historic site or the geographic area they live in with classmates. (right, no addresses!) There are now cameras and even storage media that embed latitude and longitude into images as they are shot. But you don't need fancy new toys to do this. I tried Flickr's geotagging map and it's fun and supereasy. Want to try it? Log in to Flickr http://www.flickr.com Sign in as " techedine " password " wist101 " yea, corny. Click the " You " tab then the " Your Photostream > Map " or Organize > Your Map links. Click the Satellite link in the upper right. Cool view! (you may need Google Satellite downloaded). Images along the bottom of the screen with colored dots have already been droppe
6 comments
Read more

Zoho Creator

By
I thought I’d share this web application I came across in my quest to find a relatively simple app to help us manage our mentoring data in the DL Orientation. Our specific needs were that it be a free online database, password protected, had the capability of rapid form development without too much programming knowledge and was easy for the end user to use. The application that met these requirements was Zoho Creator ( http://www.zohocreator.com/ ) a part of a suite of online applications including word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, wikis, organizers and more. What’s great about Zoho Creator is that they have an online repository of applications already developed that you can download to your account and use for free. Initially, I tried some of these applications, but it was overkill for our needs. Zoho Creator can do a lot if you know programming and they have a pay model where it allows you more flexibility and features. I think Zoho Creator would be a useful tool for both
6 comments
Read more