A500.8.3.RB - Blog - Good Presentation Design

For this week’s entry I had to focus on my thoughts on good presentation design.   Some of the information may seem repetitious due to fact that I share my thoughts in the weekly discussion forum.  I find this discussion very interesting because to me presentation plays a huge factor in my career field of education and training.  One question that comes to mind when it comes to presentation is what we did 25 years ago.  Did large butcher block pads and chalkboards do the same as today’s computers?  Were presenters of the past more skilled when it came to presentations than today’s speakers and presenters?  Make no mistake about it, I feel all types of professional presenters over use and abuse electronic presentations. The trendy phrase I often hear in presentation complaints from adult students is “Death by PowerPoint”.  Just like David Letterman has his nightly top ten; I have my own top 10… “I call this my "10 deadly sins of presentations"

(1) KISS- Keep it simple, stupid!

(2) A speaker must remember that a good presentation is there to support the speaker, not to do their job for them (they are the expert not the computer).

(3) Avoid distraction…annoying sounds and loud colors. With that said, the presenter must also remember that what looks good on a 20 inch computer screen may not be so good on a 9 ft. screen.

(4) Practice, Practice, Practice…enough said on that

(5) Avoid using audio visuals unprofessionally

(6) Avoid using out of date material. Make sure what you present is current (goes to credibility)

(7) Avoid using inappropriate humor that may not be funny; understand that some may be offended with certain jokes, if you would tell it to you mother keep it to yourself (know your audience)

(8) Avoid using poor grammar, pronunciation, and enunciation

(9) Being unfamiliar with YOUR information

(10) LAST BUT NOT LEAST…BE ON TIME & BE ORGANIZED. 

Another point I would like to address is using PowerPoint and other presentation tools as a crutch. I think the most important things is we must keep in perspective is that computers and presentation software are assistance tools and should remain as such. A question all presenters should ask themselves is, “Do you want the audience to pay attention to you or the presentation?" The biggest issue that I think is overlooked when it comes to presentation is problem the one the presenter has the most control over.  This issue is practice.  No matter how experienced a presenter is, they need to review their slides ahead of time before they present.  Personally I think a review should be done at least twice. A good review can assist in identifying slides that might be irrelevant.  The bottom line is the more prepared and familiar you are with your slides, the smoother the presentation will go.

A500.9.4.RB - Course Reflections

So now I must answer several questions concerning what have I learned from this course?  For me, the experience of this first course for this degree was very eye opening.  Even though the timing of this course was not the best for me, I felt I was able to rise to the occasion and complete the majority of the assignments.  I know there is one assignment that I will not be able to complete on time due to an account glitch and the administrators for the survey website are slow to assist me.  For that I will take a hit on my grade and feel I have let myself and the professor down.  However, I do feel I have learned quite a bit from the course.  This was a labor intensive course with a lot to learn in 9 weeks.  As far as the subject of critical thinking, I must admit that I have enhanced my comprehension.  I wonder how I will apply this new found skill throughout my life, personally and professionally.  As for the blogs, I was very skeptical at first, but now I see it as a living journal where students post their thought on the subject of that week; and I have grown to enjoy it.  I now see it as a life-long learning tool.  Now I must address the required questions for this course requirement.  What might I have done to improve my learning experience in this course?  Overall my learning experience was very good.  If anything, I could have improved on my time management where I could focus on areas that did not interest me as much.  I must admit that I did just enough to get by in those areas.  How might the University or your instructor provide additional support for your learning? Because critical thinking is not an easy subject to comprehend, more examples would assist in understanding and comprehension.  The things that provided me the most values to learning the process of critical thinking were the required videos.  The TED video Beware Conflicts of Interest by behavioral economist Dan Ariely and the TED video by Sheena Iyengar are videos that I really enjoyed and gave me a lot of insight on critical thinking.  Were there topics covered in this course that seem particularly relevant or irrelevant to your experiences and to what you expect to come in future courses?  I did not have any expectations for this course.  I am hoping is this course will set a solid foundation for this degree plan.  Last thing I feel I must address relates to the software we had to purchase.   I am curious to know how purchasing “The Brain” software will assist me in my learning endeavors.  It seems to be more of an online storage database tool rather than an educational tool.  This class caused me to think about things in various ways and the Brain software did not seem critical to my learning endeavors.