Presentations

Today's class was really interesting! Not only did I get to see seom excellently designed powerpoints and some wonderfully delivered presentations, but I also got to learn about my classmates interests.

One presentation that really stood out to me was Lucy Cevallos' presentation on Neurology. From the begining, the graphics really caught my eye. She used high-quality images that went well with her topic, and then matched her slide backgrounds and text colors to those pictures. She used these pictures to supplement what she was saying, instead of reading text off the slides that dictated her performance. Additionally, her inclusion of the youtube video about the young girl who had been given her life back after brain surgery was not only interesting, but a call to action! I liked the way she showed us only a portion of the video--that left us wanting more. However, the very best thing about her presentation was that you could tell she was passionate about her topic. She communicated to us her her enthusiasm in a way that made us want to check out the neurology field.

Another presentation I really enjoyed was Hunter Ramsy's presentation on sharks. Because he chose a narrow focus, he had time to cover it in detail. The title slide really got the audience engaged and interested in his presentation--the music he included put the audience in just the right mood, as did the dramatic entrance anamation of the shark photo. I also really liked that he put his facts in terms we could relate to. It's hard to imagine the lenght of a great white shark when given a number of feet, but when he said, "that's the lenght of two basketball goals," I found myself invisioning a terrifying beast. It really put it it perspective. His video wrapped up the presentation in a wonderful way. The best thing about this presentation was his delivery; he sounded energetic, and also used pasuses in a masterful way to create subtle suspense.

Powerpoint Tips

Powerpoint is a great tool--as long as you don't let it take the driver's seat in the presentation.

Here are some tips so that your powerpoint adds to your presentation:

1. Do not, I repeat, do not read directly off your slides. The audience can do this off their own. Use the slides only to aid you in making your point, not to make the point for you.

2. Use high quality images. Believe me, if your audience has seen many presentations, they've probably seen many of the pics in the clip art library. You want your presentation to stand out in their mind. Try visiting a site like artstor for excellent images. (Google images can be a great resource too.)

3. Have a consistent theme. If you use a million different font styles, backgrounds, etc, your audience will wind up feeling frustrated and confused.

4. Use audio and video. They can make your presentation look very professional. You can import music from your itunes library, or visit the Find Sounds database for sound effects to download.

5. KISS. "Keep it simple, stupid." It's a phrase used often by elementary school teachers, but it holds true in many situations, particularly in ours. Including pictures and perhaps a bit of text on your slides can benifit your presentation. But if you put too much text on your slides, your audience will spend their time trying to take in everything on the slides that they won't be listening to YOU.

Collage

My collage shows, in a crazy world, how the food chain could work!

Caution using Google for Research

Google isn't a good place to go for academic search, right? Wrong. Google, when used properly, can yield some pretty good results. It's important, however, to be aware of the way Google orders its search results, and to realize that sites must be carefully checked for credibility before use.
Of course, the documents in which your search terms appear most frequently appear near the top of the list. (Although it's important to not that Google does not always search the entire document, only the first 500 Kilobits of it.) However, Google also gives priority to sites that other sites have referenced (provided links to on their page). Basically, Google is assuming that if other sites reference a site, that site must be credible, or at least popular. However, a manufacturer can manipulate these results by creating thousands of blogs that all link to the company's homepage, which may or may not be what you're looking for.

Google also give priority to sites which they think are credible. For example, when "global warming hurricanes" is entered in the search box, an article from noaa.gov is the first result. However, just because a site has a domain name usually associated with credibility (.org, .gov, .edu) doesn't mean they're not biased. Sure, they may present factual information, but they may emphasize information that supports their agenda and omit information which makes readers think twice about their organization. Or, their information may be just plain untrue. For example http://www.martinlutherking.org/ looks (at first glance) like it would be a credible site. After all, it has a .org at the end! In actuality, it's a slanderous defamation against the famous man published by a white supremacy group. The really disturbing thing is that it's the fourth result when "Martin Luther King Jr" is typed into the google search box.

Once you're aware that these problems exist, however, Google is a great resource.