We've all heard of "death by PowerPoint" (DBPP) - but what does that really mean? Is PowerPoint actually just the scapegoat for a poorly delivered presentation? I think so! Why? Because the presenter is the one with the monotone robotic voice is most examples of DBPP. Further, the presenter (or his/her cronies) are the folks that create the PowerPoint slides to begin with! Maybe it should be simplified to DBP instead (Death by Presentation)
Creativity is something developed over time. It requires effort, change, and an interest in becoming different. Presentations since the creation of PowerPoint have changed very little in structure and style until now!
One of the problems with presentations is knowing what to expect. Television programs usually run in increments of 30 minutes. We know a movie will be 2 hours, a situation comedy 30 minutes. When a presentation begins, do you know how long you'll be held captive? Do you understand the number of topics being presented, or depth of content? Usually not, and the presentation software Prezi (www.prezi.com) has an interesting solution that uses a "big picture" view of the presentation.
Here's an example Navigating The Flipped Classroom (opens in a new window)
By using a single canvas and them zooming in and out of detail, there is the ability to describe relationships that exist within the content. Imagine traversing a family tree or organization chart using PowerPoint. It can be done, but the visual understanding of linkage (or lineage) might be too difficult to retain. Prezi does a good job at showing relationships. From a software developer point of view, Prezi would probably be an interesting tool to use showing an entity relationship diagram (ERD.) ERD's can be very detailed showing the data types, i.e. string, number, date, object, etc and navigating through that detail is usually done with a large printout. Using a tool such as Prezi that lets you navigate into each entity with a visual reference to related entities might prove valuable in discussions. I'll give it a try and report back in a coupleof months when my current project begins to take flight!
(Prezi is a registered trademark of Prezi Inc )
No comments:
Post a Comment