Mobile Technology in TAFE

After 3 weeks on the conference circuit, at 5 different conferences/workshops (8 days of which were away from home) I now have a good feel for what works/what doesn’t for me — and can focus on these when preparing to do my own presentations. [Image by quinncd]

Thanks to everyone who took the time to post their comments on Engaged OR Enraged? How Can We Do Presentations Better? which I used to when organising my own presentations last week. Apologies — I did respond back to the comments but managed in my tiredness to have my own comment munched! And with so many great comments I have now decided that I will respond back using this post because there were so many great tips that I would like to share with all my readers.

So here goes:

Thanks Alan for the links on tips for being a better presenters :

• Steve Job’s stories - remember to be passionate and tell stories that are compelling but don’t become distracted by all the other stuff you want to tell
• A few more Presentation How To’s - read this post - there are so many great tips for being a better presenter
• Better Beginnings: how to start a presentation, book, article… - this was definitely an important post I needed to read as I was doing everything Kathy Sierra recommends we don’t do. As a result of reading this information I totally changed the order of my slides and put my demos of podcasts at near the beginning.
• Presentation Zen - Agree every presenter should read through tips here — I used these tips when I changed to Presentation 2.0 style powerpoints.

I agree with Simon that clever presenters that have powerpoint as a background displaying stunning images, highlighting key points really engage me. Good luck with your own presentation! Simon please let us know if you want some more assistance.

Wow Emerald and Kathryn great points on what you don’t like (especially point number 6):

1. Reading aloud a paper.
2. Slides unconnected to what the person is saying.
3. Too much text on the slides - I WILL try to read it and ignore the speaker
4. The “wise person on the podium” approach
5. People who just quote factette after factette but are obviously unfamiliar with the material and haven’t applied any original thought (happens when senior people who should know stuff, but don’t are asked to speak)
6. Presentations that I think “well neither of us needed to be here in person for that”.

Totally agree Howard stories are important. My only disclaimer would be they have to be stories that your audience can relate to - presenters have lost me using stories and analogues that I don’t identify with - and you can use too many stories.

Diane’s tips were:

• Give lots of practical examples - which is what I try hard to do because I find different examples will inspire different educators
• Ensure you provide a variety of formats, too! i,e, provide paper, electronic, or both - for later exploration because your participants will have their own preferred learning style and vary in terms of technical ability. I remember a classic example where I created an “how to do” screencast (i.e. video) only to find that most my workshop participants struggle to learn this way and preferred detailed “how to” handouts.

Sorry Sarah was my fault — I should have linked better to my post on Presentation 2.0. Once you have seen a presenter use this method of powerpoint effectively - WOW - very hard to cope with other forms. There are lots of great examples of Presentation 2.0 styles on Slideshare however check out Alan’s Being There presentation while listening to the audio - it may give you an idea of how it ties together. (Mutter, mutter — Alan is much better at this style than me — can just watch in awe!)

Kate — I really could do with some voice coaching from you! Wish you were in Perth. Kate’s area of expertise is theatre and she shared these tips with us:

• Everyone can benefit from rehearsing your stuff. Speak it out loud and learn where to hit the button for the next slide; a lot of colleagues are astonished at this suggestion. Really, an awful lot of wrinkles (including performance anxiety) are ironed out during this phase of your prep. Timing is also very important.
• What works for me as an audience member is the concept image with the presenter speaking to the meaning … “an image is worth etc.”; large fonts please with only one or two text lines; DON’T read the text, speak to it.
• Learn to speak clearly and don’t rush (timing again) and yes, eye contact works really well if you can see the audience. Sometimes the lights are turned out for presentations, and you can’t see a thing in a big room. A tip here to make everyone feel you are contacting them, sweep across the audience with your eye line just about the heads of everyone. It works.
• And don’t forget that it is the human presence, the dynamics of communication which is paramount in all this. Don’t be killed off by your own slide-based presentation.

Take time to read the links John supplied as the research results also relate to classroom teaching. Thanks John for these great links:

• Research points the finger at PowerPoint - We all need to KNOW THIS! “It is more difficult to process information if it is coming at you in the written and spoken form at the same time.” I am glad there is a scientific basis to why I had to switch off in a few of the presentations!
• Help! My brain is overloaded!- I need to remember this “In a classroom situation, only limited material is going to be retained, unless notes are taken or handed out”

John also asked me “What is engaging you in presentations?.” Well over the past 3 weeks — the only ones that have totally engaged me are the ones that focused on interaction and conversations. What works for me on the web is social networking - the engaging, communication, collaborating, conversations and sharing. Yet conferences often expect us to sit in rooms for up to 8 hours just passively taking in information with no interaction.

As Joel says “Great slides don’t make great presentations. Great presenters make great presentations.” So true! 3 weeks of conferences I have some classic examples of presentations that had valuable information but I could not hold my attention for this exact reason.

Thanks Gary for the link to Miles’s review of 19 Tips for Public speaking. Some of my friends have pet words — hate to think what mine are….

Love how Leonard is now debating the true meaning of Presentation 2.0 - “A *TRUE* “Presentation 2.0″ should involve the audience - if not in the creation of the content itself, then certainly in its delivery.”

You know what Leonard I think I agree - when reflecting what I like/don’t like — the unconference format of BarCamp and PodCamp work the best for me because of the interaction between the presenter and participants. Would love to see the unconference format adopted more widely. PS Harriet can you ask Louise and Jackie for how they found the unconference format?

WOW think Sally comment is a nice closer where she talks about:

• Mixing shock value of stories with images that are equally shocking/confusing/hilarious
• That work it in with the heated/passionate discussion that will soon follow, either through questions or comments, depending on the size of the audience into collaboration and networking.

Great quote Sally “In summary, bounce off the walls and let it get messy - it lends for some real cool learning”

FINAL THOUGHT

PS Hopefully my presentations went okay — still on trainer wheels — feedback welcome.

Side note — What I did add into mine last week was SMS for them to ask questions between the morning and the afternoon presentations — which meant they were able to ask questions they would not normally have an opportunity to ask and get their answers!

Yes I know Mlearn 2007 conference was sooooo last week (I’m now at WA E-Learning Conference) but I have to share the story of people like Simon Brown, from my network, who did not attend the conference, but felt a sense of “being there” through the blog posts, flickr photos, twitter, Skype, wiki sites and live Elluminate sessions.

People like Simon are the exact reason why we need to ensure, wherever practically possible, that conferences do provide:

• services for people unable to attend to be able to participate virtually through live broadcasts of sessions using virtual classroom tools like Elluminate
• free wireless access for participants so they can maintain contact with their networks and live blog if they choose
• a site that brings together all the information about the conference that is being uploaded to the Internet as it is happening (such as the blog posts, twittering, photos).

If our desired goal of conferences is to inspire changes in work practices catering for our global virtual audience will ensure inspiration is spread beyond the walls of the conference. Through this live interaction with mLearn 2007 Simon now wants to incorporate mlearning into his program.

Simon teaches stonemasonry trade skills to apprentices at SkillsTech Australia in Brisbane (Queensland). He tapped into all the live Elluminate sessions and we skyped plus twittered to each other all day, every day.

While he enjoyed all the Elluminate session I was totally blown away by his response to Marcus Ragus, Sam Meredeth, Daniel Dacey and Ian Whitehouse presentation on Embedded technologies (in particular RFID technology). So while I was relaxing after a busy few days of attending the conference Simon was busy investigating RFID technology and trying to work out how he could get his hands on it.

Finally in frustration, after several hours, he skyped me to ask if I could give him more details. Fortunately I sitting on the lounge area at the conference (was tooooo tired to move) so I told him to ring me using Skype and I grabbed Daniel Dacey (New England Computer Solutions) who was able to answer all his questions.

When I asked him why RFID technologies was the one that inspired him the most he said “while I enjoyed the other sessions I could not see practical applications whereas I could see immediate application of RFID in my teaching area”. As a result Simon is interested in purchasing a single handheld unit, and tags & software for a pilot study in the Eagle Farm stonemasonry workshop for:

• building-site induction
• training workshop for triggering learning content on the subject of safe of tools, equipment & machinery operation , and assisting with demonstrating practical skills.

His idea is to use the RFID technology for blended delivery within his workshops, giving students choices about when and where they learn. Check out this post to learn what RFID technology is about and why Simon was excite. Contact Daniel Dacey to find out more about the RFID learning table.

To be honest I did feel that John Larkin was being a bit harsh when he said “Enough of the “world changing” five minute videos and please do not pad out your presentations with one video after another during a keynote at a conference unless you were the author of the included video(s).” But after being in conference workshops for most of this week, admittedly not with a lot of video, I do agree that presenters really need to think about how they present. [Image by Nick Hodge]

And lets just start with a disclaimer, the problem is not entirely with the presenters, we are also talking about me! My brain is so used to the high level of multitasking now that you REALLY NEED TO BE good to keep me engage. I switch off incredibly quickly if you fail to continue to engage me. And when I do come to conferences it does make me reflect on how my students may be feeling in my classes and how I do my own presentations.

So what is working for me? Well some obviously forgot to read the memo about:

• The banning of bullet points! - ok will accept a few provided that there is minimal text
• Extremely long text - totally can not focus on what is being said and the text
• Bullets of long text and then reading it!

Please guys Powerpoints are ok but use of Presentation 2.0 method is far better!

I can see why John highlights his concern now about video because with so much great ones being available to use we are tending to grab for a video to enhance our presentation. But are we really enhancing it if every one it automatically grabbing a video. So now you have death by powerpoint mixed with killing with video. Is that like a double murder?

Am I any better? Probably NOT. So am now seriously concerned! Next week I have to do a presentation for our e-learning showcase (1 hr presentation followed by 1 hr hands on). The hands on will be fine (ROFL provided enough computers that actually work to record audio for podcasting). But what about 1 hr presentation?

So please help me by telling me!

• What is engaging you in presentations?
• What is enraging you enough to switch totally off?
• What has been fun in terms of how a presenter has made you interact during the presentation and what has REALLY TOTALLY ANNOYED YOU?

PS Alan you were really good, for someone like me - even being unwell!

My obsession has now moved from no bullets allowed to no boring PowerPoint template can be used (calm - it only applies to me - so far). After giving Presentation 2.0 a try for my BarCamp session I could no longer live with the old way.

My obsessive personality is tiring. The good news is I have learnt a lot more about how to use flickr and am always trying to find photos that I can legally use. Searching Flickr creative commons photos is a great place to locate excellent photos that you can use.

My presentation for m-learning is located at Slideshare. Here is my e-learning presentation (note the first 14 slides are the same for both presentations).

[slideshare id=71735&doc=elearning-evolution-web-20802&w=425]

Ever since I went to Nancy White’s presentation last year I have not been able to use bullet points in PowerPoint presentations. Why? Because she told us bullets are out. It has become so bad that if I walk past someone at work using bullet points I will push them off their own machine, go into slide master and change the formatting to remove all traces of those nasty creatures. I get into some great discussions about why bullets are NOT allowed.

So bullets are now gone but I have not quite reached where people are going with the new look of PowerPoint Presentations (called Presentation 2.0). A very simplistic definition of presentation 2.0 is it involves changing the style so that images communicate most the message. Please read Vicki’s Tips and Insights into Presentation 2.0 for a much better understanding of what it is all about. Thanks Vicki for these great tips. BTW where is your Presentation 2.0 from NECC?

It was Gabriela who originally inspired me to want to do a Presentation 2.0 with her fantastic Web 2.0 in higher Education: Opportunities and Challenges presentation.

[slideshare id=50630&doc=gabriela-grosseck-cie-may-2007-bucharest-4221&w=425]

Since I am going to BarCamp this weekend I decided to give it a go. It has been really hard to decide what to do a presentation on and what level to pitch it at as participants will be both technical (programmers), educators and Web 2.0ers. So have chosen m-learning. Assumed basic knowledge only and kept the really short slides because only have 20 minutes (can always showcase resources on PDAs).

I plan to talk about the differences between how we use of e-learning/m-learning in VET compared to Universities to highlight why the various educational sectors will take different paths in m-learning. Based on the fact that BarCamp is an unconference, anything could happen and I may not even get an opportunity to present them - such is life. At least I practiced creating a Presentation 2.0.

The best aspect of Web 2.0 sites like Slideshare is that people are sharing their presentations and we are getting inspiration from each other. Check out my presentation is below (not in Gabriela’s league).

Selecting Images

Finding and choosing images that you are allowed to use is the hardest aspect. (Working out how to be creative is hard for me). My tip is to search flickr photos licensed by creative commons 2.0 using tags.

To Embed Slideshare in Edublogs

Change from Visual to Code then copy and paste the code for “Embed in Wordpress.com”. Change back to Visual and save your post to see the presentation

Thanks to Philip for supplying the food platter to go with this presentation because every good presenter should bride the audience for a good response.

[slideshare id=70901&doc=mlearning-learning-on-the-go3689&w=425]