Sunday, September 25, 2011


When revising my copyright crash course power point I realized that many of the recommendations that Lynell Burmark was implementing were vital to maintain the motivation and attentiveness of the audience. The changes that I had to make to my presentation made my slides look completely different when I finished tweaking them. Even though, I had used color in my presentation I learned that by using cool colors it made my presentation more inviting. I also changed the font and size of the words used in the entire slides taking into consideration that consistency throughout would make it a more complete presentation.

Chapter 2 synopsis "They Snooze you Lose"

Sonia Aldape
6340.64

Chapter 2 Creating Slides and handouts

Considering what was learned in the previous chapter now you must take into account that according to Jakob Nielson, “you only have about ten seconds to grab visitors’ attention before they click off your site." Therefore, when creating a presentation you have two options in developing your slides to maintain motivation and attentiveness by the audience whether it is for entertainment or edutainment. Nonetheless, whether your audiences are adults or students, as a presenter you have an obligation to instill knowledge in an engaging manner. One recommendation mentioned in this chapter is to avoid using handouts that resemble the actual power point presentation because by doing this the audience will be bored and inattentive. As you create the slides it is suggested that images with words be used to keep the audience engaged. “Mayer’s research confirms what good teachers have always known intuitively: The best way to foster learning involves both words and pictures.” Furthermore, handouts must be used to encourage the audience to compile information that can be helpful in the future. During the presentation “if there are books, articles, websites, quotations you refer to during the presentation, put those on the handout.” Finally, if the audience is stimulated throughout the presentation and the handouts are used as a support for retaining the information that is being presented then the presenter has impacted the audience.

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1 Nielson, Jakob, “Top Ten Mistakes in Web Page Design” 1996 [Online article available: http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9605a.html]
2 Mayer, Richard E., Multimedia Learning (2nd ed.) (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009).
3 Burmark, Lynell, (2011)-They snooze, you lose: the educator’s guide to successfulpresentations/Lynell Burmark.

Chapter one synopsis "They Snooze you Lose"

Sonia Aldape
6340.64

Chapter 1 Tweaking presentations

Wondering if your power point presentation will put your audience to sleep or not? The first chapter to the book "They snooze you lose,” gives you insight on how you are able to tweak your power point presentation to make it more exciting to view as well as listen to. The author, Lynell Burmark, states that when creating a power point presentation you must take careful consideration to the following points: template, color, and type. The template to the power point presentation will give a first impression as your audience glances at your slide to engage them to what is to come. Therefore, a template must support the information on the slide not overwhelm the viewer with excessive elements. When placing these elements on the template keep in mind that we are trained to read from left to right, so our eyes will be drawn to the left side of the slide. This insight of knowledge will help to create slides that will be useful and inviting for viewers to follow along. As you develop your slides you must also take color palette into consideration which will help the viewer comprehend and retain the information. In this book it is recommended to use cool colors for the background and text of the template like blue and green because they are considered calming and pleasant to the eye. On the other hand, it also mentions that warm colors could also be considered to use in the templates like the colors red and yellow if the subject matter is dangerous and caution must be taken by the audience. In order to keep the audience interested in your power point there must be consistency throughout the slides with the color of your choice. Finally, the chapter talks about the type which focuses on the amount of words used on each slide as well as color and layout used to display the font of the text. “As John Medina likes to point out, the average PowerPoint slide contains forty words.” When considering font size and color it is recommended that you take into consideration the audience size and room arrangement. By previewing the presentation you will be able to tweak and achieve good visibility even for the people that sit in the back of the room. In conclusion, this chapter has shown me that by taking inconsideration small details in the power point the audience can go away with a good learning experience.

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1 Medina, John, Brain Rules, p.239.

Saturday, September 3, 2011

Copyright Crash Course Presentation

Week 2 assignment 6340.64

The Crash Course Copyright article has been an eye opener for me as an educator. Although, I am aware of the copyrights for books and worksheet used in the classroom there is a vast amount of information about infringment as a student.  By doing the power point presentation it helped me become informed on particular aspect that without reading this article I would have not been aware how a person can be sued for willingful use of others works without permission.