ADD PIZAZZ TO YOUR CONFERENCE PRESENTATION: Stage 2

This is the blog that could change your professional life as you now know it. Yeah right!! I wish I had something that profound to offer. Sorry, but no "black holes" like Stephen Hawking in my blogs!


Background-wise, I will tell you that I’ve taken beginning and intermediate full-day workshops on PowerPoint at my university. It is significant to note that in class sizes of about 30, I was the only faculty member on both occasions. Everyone else was an administrative assistant to a faculty member or administrator. That was 4 years ago. I learned the basic rules of slide composition and how to locate different features in the program. None of my “pizazz” questions was answered satisfactorily.


The purpose of this blog and the ones that follow is to pass on what I learned after those workshops from observing other PowerPoint presentations and from my own trial-and-error experimentation. Maybe you can use 1 or 2 ideas from the inventory of techniques I present that can save you buckets of time to learn on your own. Let me know whether any of the material is useful.


At this point, you have the content in some form on your slides with section headers. That’s exactly the way I begin to prepare any presentations. Let’s not lose sight of the fact that your audience is there for the substance. That is still the most important element, as it would be in the classroom if you are teaching. Anything else is a bonus. In other words, we are now focusing on BONUSWORLD. All of my suggestions apply to any conference as well as classroom presentation.


Stage 2


What can we now add on to the content slides that will bring the dead words to life and engage your audience of professionals or students? Your audience size may be 10 students in a doctoral seminar or 5000 attendees at a conference.


Here are my TOP 10 BONUS ADD-ONS to the content:


10. Color


9. Slide Movement


8. Letter and Word Movement


7. Simple Visuals


6. Complex Visuals


5. Sound Effects


4. Music Clips


3. Video Clips


2. Engagement Activities


And the Number 1 Technique


1. Humor



You can probably think of 10 more ideas. If so, please share, and I will pass them on in my blog and credit your contribution. Or, maybe you know most of these, but there’s 1 on this list you haven’t considered. Most of these techniques are simple add-ons. I am not a techie.


If your PowerPoint presentation were evaluated according to the Olympic criteria of TECHNICAL MERIT and ARTISTIC IMPRESSION, the former is Stage 1 (The WHAT) and the latter is Stage 2 (The HOW). The add-ons above involve some mechanical skill, but your artistic gifts are the most important. If you have experience in theatre, playing a musical instrument, singing, dancing, drawing, painting, graphic design, photography, videography, stand-up comedy, or related gifts, this is your opportunity to release them and let them shine in your presentation. Use your artistic creativity and imagination.

If you integrate your gifts into your PowerPoint, it will make your presentation uniquely YOU and set it apart from the rest of the pack. The audience will remember the WHAT because of HOW you delivered it.


Future blogs will put flesh on the bones of my TOP 10. Let me know your reactions on this artistic journey.


COPYRIGHT © 2009 Ronald A. Berk, LLC

A Few Life-Shaping Events for Net Geners

There are events that occur in our lives that can radically change, shape, or influence what we do and why we do it. These time-specific events are distinguishing factors that separate the various generations. Here are a few of those events that shaped the Net Geners:

• exposed to first Gulf War
• may have served in Iraq and/or Afghanistan
• experienced first-hand the expansive growth of the technologies, including PCs, Internet, video games, virtual environments, iPhones, iPods, blogs, wikis, and social media networks
• watched reality TV
• observed the rise and subsequent failure of many dot.com companies and the stock market crash of 2008
• witnessed the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Columbine shootings, Oklahoma City bombing, the O. J. Simpson trial, and the AIDS epidemic
• participated in America’s diversity, multiculturalism, and election of the first Afro-American president

Can those events change someone? Ya think? Consider how the Net Geners might respond to those events compared to the rest of us.

COPYRIGHT © 2009 Ronald A. Berk, LLC

A Generation of Students "Born with a Chip"

Despite the fact that we know more about our students’ brains and intelligences, how to teach effectively, how students learn, and the technological applications to learning than at anytime previously, about 50% of college students are unmotivated, disinterested, and disengaged from classroom instruction now more than they ever have been. While in class, they may IM or text their buddies while taking notes on their PCs, Web-surfing, scanning an iTunes playlist, and reading The Color Purple (Carlson, 2005).
Where’s the disconnect? Why are they disengaged? Is this generation of students in school right now really that different from previous generations? Today’s undergraduate and graduate students who are part of this generation comprise the majority of students in higher education.
The burgeoning technology alone has had a profound effect on this generation, unlike any previous one. They were “born with a chip.” Are they significantly different? You bet! These students have grown up with Sesame Street, MTV, reality TV, the Internet, PCs/Macs, video games, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Flickr, Skype, iPods, iPhones, PDAs, and TV/DVD remotes as appendages to their bodies. How über cool is that? They carry an arsenal of electronic devices with them. They are key ingredients in their world. Their use of the technology focuses on social networking, music, videos, TV programs, and games. They live in a world of media overstimulation and absolutely love it. As the lyrics to the Peabo Bryson and Regina Belle hit song from Aladdin tell us, we are entering "A Whole New World."
The technologies provide a window into this world. The students’ world is not better than or inferior to ours; it’s just different. When the students cross the threshold of the classroom door, they enter culture shock. They’re numb with understimulation. How can any professor possibly compete with their world? They can’t. Therein lies the disconnect and it will worsen as there stimulation accelerates with the cultural manifestations of the technology in the future. That’s the problem. How do we address it? Future blogs will address this issue and whether all Net Geners are tech savvy.

COPYRIGHT © 2009 Ronald A. Berk, LLC

Misuse of PowerPoint in the Classroom

Based on the results of the survey of students in England, reported in yesterday's blog, the manner in which professors use PowerPoint in their classes contributed significantly to the students' boredom. I don't think those practices are that different in the U.S as well as in most other countries. Lecture with PowerPoint is still the predominant form of information delivery in college classes.
PowerPoint is a perfect example of a technology that is frequently used inappropriately in teaching. Basically, it’s just text material projected on the screen rather than in a book, although graphics and images may be included. If the slides are jam packed with tons of content too small to read from the students' seats and professors just read those slides to the students as if they were three years old, the students should be bored as well as insulted. That practice has been called "death by PowerPoint," and a slow and painful one at that. It may be the simplest and laziest use of the technology, albeit, also an ineffective use. If you post the slides on the course Website, the students don’t have to come to class and, in fact, many of them don’t.
Fortunately, there are effective applications of PowerPoint that some professors are using. They amplify, interpret, animate, discuss, and/or question the slide content to engage the students and/or incorporate music, sound effects, and videos into the slides. In large classes, in particular, some use clickers to solicit opinions or to test their understanding of the content being discussed. ENGAGEMENT is critical to grab and maintain the students' attention. PowerPoint can engage students, even with lecture, when used appropriately.

COPYRIGHT © 2009 Ronald A. Berk, LLC