Home | Login | Recent Changes | Search | All Pages | Help

PowerPointIsNotEvil

Moderated by BruceEckel

(This can either be a contributed session or a BOF, depending on what works best for people.)

PP isn't evil by itself, but it does enable bad presenters to quickly create and deliver bad presentations. Using PP to hide all manner of incompetence is not the issue of this session. Instead, I'd like to discuss everyone's experience of how to make a really good presentation, including making the best use of media aids, PP or otherwise. For example:

• Audience engagement is clearly more stimulating and educational than lecturing. What kind of audience participation exercises are best? Should there be a progression of different kinds of exercises to warm people up to more participation, and what kinds of things work for this? (For example, I've taken an improvisational acting workshop that moved people very comfortably into what is normally considered an extremely difficult and even terrifying experience.)
  
  
• What sort of visual and audio stimulation makes sense when you do have a projector and screen available? Clearly, you don't want to read your slides, but sometimes little indicators of your prime points are very helpful, both for you and the audience. And appropriate little pictures can help fix things in people's memories. What works, and what doesn't?
  
  
• How about a mix of presentation and exercises (this is what I use in my own seminars). How long should a presentation go on before you should switch to a different experience?
  
  
• What other kinds of experiences (apart from lectures and exercises) might provide stimulation for participants?
  
  
  

[Return to ContributedSession]

1.