Copyright rev0.5

Copyright rev0.5

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 In Revision 0.5, I added notes to each slide explaining the emotional hook. I again reworked the brainstorm slide. I actually like the one with the world background and this one equally well. I find them both effective. I eliminated my Venn Diagram in favor of a Wordle. Much more striking! The TEACH Act globe and laptop image moved to fullscreen. The last slide kept the shark theme, but changed its content. The first shark slide depicts the cutthroat behavior (of copyright infringers and copyright courts). The ending slide depicts the serenity from proper copyright planning and adherence.

Week 6 Chapter 9 Tapping Emotion

Capturing emotion in presentations

Burmark (2011) brings about the various advantages of using feelings in presentations. The author can elicit both negative and positive emotions for benefit. It is only important to include some type emotional framework. Presentations by their very nature often contain a large number of facts. If not correctly presented, facts may immediately disengage the audience through boredom or lack of understanding. The left half of the brain processes numbers, facts and data. It may not be the most effective half of the brain to use for securing new material. To make a broader appeal to the audience, the presenter may draw upon the cognitive aspects of the right half of the brain, which works with emotional, musical and visual information. Poverty is a subject that has always held my interest. I once thought of publishing a book about poverty that was visual in nature. My idea was to approach the everyday homeless that I saw at traffic intersections and ask for a brief photographic session. I have not helped but notice the extreme power of “the eyes of poverty” on numerous web photographs. This method of teaching unfortunately draws upon a negative emotion, but the topic itself is emotionally draining. In this case, the emotional impact would work because the subject matter and the emotional state are complementary. There are many opportunities to use emotion for an increased edge in captivating the audience.

References

Burmark, L. (2011). Tapping Emotion. In They snooze, you lose: The educator’s guide to successful presentations (pp. 157-174). San Francisco, CA: Josey Bass.

Week 6 Chapter 8 Playing music

Adding music to presentations

Burmark (2011) discusses the benefits of adding music to presentations and combining with images to create a captivating presentation. She discusses the various emotions invoked with music and the benefits of achieving balance. I have understood the impact that music can have since age five, when music first caught my attention. I was too young, of course, to understand why, but I did know that it could make me feel very happy. One of the reasons it works in learning is association. Association of the music with the event (the presentation) can lead to a powerful retention boost. Essential to keep in mind though, is that the author must carefully choose the music to be effective. For maximum impact, the music must match the pace and the general mood of the topic. Adding music to a presentation seems like a challenge to me at this time. How do you keep it from clashing in content and loudness? How do you choose something that relates to the audience? Just because it makes you feel happy does not mean it will make everyone feel happy. As I gain experience, these issues should resolve themselves.

References

Burmark, L. (2011). Playing Music. In They snooze, you lose: The educator’s guide to successful presentations (pp. 142-156). San Francisco, CA: Josey Bass.

Copyright rev0.4a

Copyright rev0.4a

View more PowerPoint from richardofaustin

  I added several pertinent images, 3 of which are my own.
I reduced the wordcount to 6 words average per slide. Reworked
the brainstorming image. Never was that happy with the first one.
Reduced words in first Fair Use slide. Considerably reduced
wording on TEACH Act and dropped one slide altogether.

This is Rev0.4a, slight modification  for legibility on Orphan slide. rcw.

Copyright Rev 0.4

Copyright rev0.4  

View more PowerPoint from richardofaustin

  I added several pertinent images, 3 of which are my own.
I reduced the word count to 6 words average per slide. Reworked
the brainstorming image. Never was that happy with the first one.
Reduced words in first Fair Use slide. Considerably reduced
wording on TEACH Act and dropped one slide altogether.

6340: Week 5 Starting with images

Perspectives on images in presentations

Burmark (2011) provides an in-depth look at the power that images have on a presentation. Images must be pertinent to be effective. They should not disengage or distract the listener from the core topic. Images draw the attention of the audience before the words. For maximum benefit in learning, there should not be any more words than essential. After the authors reduce the words to the essential, they should highlight the text in color, with red being the fastest color to recognize. Sizing of the image is critical and the presenter should aim for a full slide image for maximum effectiveness.

Burmark (2011) is sometimes confusing on her objective with images. At times (p.119, p.135, p.136) she discusses the usage of images alone without any text. At other times (p.123, p.129, p.130, p.134, p.140) she speaks of combining images with text as a synergistic experience. While linearly reading the chapter, it is unclear which technique she is recommending. I believe that some words are essential to the learning experience. Images do a great deal to enhance learning, especially for those that are slower with processing words. For maximum retention, though, I believe that all channels of learning should be used, that is, auditory, textual and imagery. Burmark (2011) shows one example of a color graph, but does not go into extensive details about the benefits of graphs. Graphs are images, too, and I find them very effective, with two exceptions. A presentation of only graphs is repetitious and boring. Graphs that have too much detail, as in a quarterly earnings report, are unreadable and ineffective. Her graph example, on the other hand, is very effective. In another great example, she shows an increasingly improved presentation on riding a bicycle. It a concrete idea and works very well. For an abstract idea, visual enhancement is considerably more challenging.

References

Burmark, L. (2011). Harnessing Humor. In They snooze, you lose: Starting with images (pp. 109-140). San Francisco, CA: Josey Bass.

6340: Week 5 Harnessing Humor

Harnessing Humor

Burmark (2011) points out a remarkable statistic. Pre-school children laugh over four hundred times a day, while the average adult only laughs about 35 times a day. She jokingly states that the decline in laughter seems to parallel the K-12 curriculum in the United States. I hope that this statement is not true or I am through training to be an educator. One of the most important aspects of humor is the element of surprise, a twist at the end of the road. She briefly mentions wit, mirth and laughter as defining humor. A twist in the order of lines in a joke is another laughter technique. To make humor effective, we have to connect our content to the humor. The reason is that the brain likes to make connections from the known to the unknown. We have to remember that we are responsible for making the audiences remember, so we do not want humor that is disconnected.

I have always enjoyed presentations that include small cartoons, sketches, wit or other elements of surprise. They catch me off guard and help me to connect to the presenter. I do not think it is necessary to have barrel rolling laughter to be effective. In fact, you have to be careful with humor, especially to excess, or the audience will not take you seriously. A tiny element of surprise is sufficient to get my attention.

References

Burmark, L. (2011). Harnessing Humor. In They snooze, you lose: The educator’s guide to successful presentations (pp. 93-107). San Francisco, CA: Josey Bass.