“Interactivity” -Synthesis of today’s class
September 21, 2006
The transformation of the PTA presentation was phenomenal. It was a completely different presentation! That group’s use of the first organizing slide was what I think some of you were talking about when you talk about using PowerPoint as notecards or to organize information.
Now was it heart-stopping innovative design? Maybe not so much. The medium of PowerPoint has a certain look and feel and for the most part people use it as a functional sort of thing, to provide visual back-up for their text.
The other group focused in on a more micro-level view and reorganized a slide of information. They were limited by the fact that they didn’t have a content expert on their team, which made their whole process different. They really cleaned up the slide, limited the number of images, grouped related information proximally, and improved the visibility of the most salient information. Their work made me question a lot of stuff that was on the slide and what the content of the slide was really trying to say. After they pared it down, it didn’t seem like the information being shared got down to the meat of anything important–which was not the group’s fault. But it did reveal how all that text and imagery can make a presentation look full, when it is really quite empty.
After the class discussion today—when do you think it would be appropriate to use PowerPoint? When is it inappropriate? How much information do you think a typical audience retains from a PowerPoint presentation?
As a final note, creating hands-on/minds-on activities is great. It requires learners to engage with the material. As Angela noted in regards to Dale’s Cone of Experience, it becomes more probable that the learners will retain the information and be able to apply it later on. It also takes more time than you ever imagine it will. Lots of time! However, it is time well invested.
September 23, 2006 at 3:41 am
Working in small groups to redesign powerpoint yesterday was an appropriate time to use powerpoint but presenting to small groups might not be as appropriate. It seems to me that it might work best when presenting to larger groups because it might be difficult to connect to each person individually, powerpoint atleast adds one other form to try to make that connection. Powerpoint should never be the sole medium of a presentation. A presenter must be present and engaging.
I think a typical audience retains from a Powerpoint presentation whatever the speaker reinforces verbally in the presentation (provided the audience has their ‘minds on’). In another blog I mentioned that my most significant experience with Powerpoint was my senior year of college. Everyone in my major of Environmental Science was responsible for researching a topic and presenting it to the class through a powerpoint demonstration. Eight years later I still remember bits and pieces. I especially remember my friend Megan’s presentation. She presented her research on waste management. When she got to the part about how dynamite is sometimes used to break through waste material she had the image of J.J. the character from Good Times. Written from his mouth were the words “Dy no mite”, like he used to say on the show. It was a very cheesy and unprofessional way to use Powerpoint but it made the class laugh and I still remember it now.
Maybe it’s impossible to set rigid rules for how and when to use Powerpoint. Maybe people just need to experiment and see if it works for them and what they are trying to accomplish.