Digital presentations

The past few weeks of this class have started me thinking about digital media in the classroom. Go figure, right? Well, as I said in my blog last week, I have only just become really aware that I am a student of classrooms with digital media. This week I think I will continue my post-modernist musings.


On our Topic Presentations...

When I was younger, class presentations were constructed of posterboard, blocklettering, index card with writing scribbled on them, and nerves of steel. We would print out pictures from our home computer, grab some markers, and set to work making a kick-butt poster that would serve as our one-and-only visual aide. These posters were not interactive, nor were they any degree of dynamic. Alas, they were all we had.

Old-school style posters served only as evidence that we spent some time - usually about 30 minutes- on our presentations. Beyond that they are not incredibly helpful. They could not be used to illustrate or explain things (like how to make your very own podcast). We nervous student presenters had to verbally explain every detail and every step. To make it worse, a small, static, boring poster doesn't occupy the audience's eye like a digital presentation. Therefore, all eyes are on the presenter him/herself. I swear they were required so our teacher had something tangible to evaluate. At the very least, our teachers could give up grade points for them that could help make up for our sub-par oral presentation skills.

A lot has changed since my days of poster-making. Home computers became more common and a little program called PowerPoint was gaining a presence in schools. For much of college, we used PowerPoints to assist in our presentations. PowerPoint presentations can be incredibly useful tools. They can be displayed significantly larger than any Staples brand poster board, they can include audio and video objects, they do not have space restrictions to limit information, they link to websites, and they even offer nifty animations to transition to the next slide. Of course, they do have a downside. Many presenters rely too much on the slide show and their speech lacks. More often, people abuse the programs "nifty" possibilities and over load presentations with too much texts, clipart, and animations on each slide.

Perhaps the pitfalls of PowerPointing are the reason that thus far all of the Topic Presentations have been PowerPoint-free. Instead, we all have used our blog pages as a backbone of the talk and convenient place to have links. But why haven't we used PowerPoint? I had originally planned to use PowerPoint. I am not a huge fan of the program, so I was relieved to see the first presenter effectively used her blog. I followed her example. I think it worked out.

Blog-based presentations are not always appropriate. I cannot imagine giving a pitch at work on opening up nikad9.blogspot.com in place of Microsoft PowerPoint. Still I wonder, PowerPoint cannot be the final say in presentations, can it? I wonder what digital media is on the rise to offer students and professionals alike a better visual aide. No matter what it has to be better than my old block lettered, glue stick-stuck creations on posterboard.