Presentations, Filmmaking, and Writing

"Good presentations need not be limited to one speaker standing in front of an audience.  Digital writers can be much more creative than that." (Hicks 2013, p. 67)

I enjoyed reading Chapter 4 of Hicks.  This chapter pointed out many problems with presentations, and I realized that I had just been accepting these problems without really trying to address them.  Yes, I use PowerPoint Presentations in my classroom.  Yes, I use the standard themes and templates.  However, I always thought that my presentations were somehow different from the ones that I could not stand sitting through.  Surely my use of videos, pictures, and audio gave them enough variety that they really grabbed the attention of my students.  Given the limitations of PowerPoint, I felt like I was doing great work. 

However, if I am being really honest with myself . . .

Presentations can be so much more dynamic than what I have accepted as good work.  At some point PowerPoint was new and dynamic, and I can recall my early exposure to PowerPoint when I was an undergraduate.  It felt new and exciting, and my professors who made these presentations seemed to be more exciting and more fascinating than professors who were still doing the "old-fashioned" style of lecture.  However, those undergraduate days were 10 years ago, and the technology has become stale to a modern audience/student.

When I think about those days of PowerPoint being exciting and new, I realize something else about that experience.  It was the teacher who made the class exciting more than the presentations.  The teachers who were using PowerPoint 10 years ago were the ones who were willing to try something new in order to grab the attention and focus of the students.  Teachers like that, who are willing to take risks for the benefit of their students, will have their students' full attention regardless of the technology.  I am willing to bet that those same teachers have moved onto other ways to present information, because they have had to adapt to the needs of a new generation of students who are no longer impressed by a view basic slides and links.  I'd imagine those teachers are using more dynamic resources like Prezi.

Last year, a teacher at my school gave a presentation to the faculty.  The subject of the presentation was summer school.  It was mostly an informational presentation that was not necessarily filled with exciting news.  However, the presentation was different than others that I had experienced before.  He zoomed in and out of this concept map, and I found myself pulled into what he was presenting.  I now realize that he was using Prezi, and I am interested in exploring the possibilities that Prezi offers.

For my mentor text, I selected: The Ten Most Common Rookie Presentation Mistakes

I think that this presentation is excellent.The Home Image is the silhouette of a man giving a presentation, and then there are red "thought bubbles" around it.  As soon as I saw the first image of the presentation, I wanted to start clicking around and zooming immediately.  I felt like there was something there that needed to be explored.

Each thought bubble has a relatively small amount of information, but all the important thoughts are there.  Someone presenting with these slides accompanying them could easily supplement the slide with their own thoughts and elaborations.  The slides are also supplemented with videos, pictures, and fun bits of information.  The highest compliment that I can give this presentation is that it is fun to explore.  I wanted to see what happened next, and I feel like I also absorbed some great information.  I would love to create something that looked like this presentation.

Movie-Making in the English Classroom?

Gura (2014) also inspired me this week with his 20-Shot Short Story and Digital Move Projects.  As a film and media studies major in my undergraduate years, I spent many hours editing video and putting together projects.  However, as an English teacher, I have been hesitant to incorporate these types of projects in my classroom.  I have been afraid that the students will not have access to the technology or won't understand how to use it.  I also fear that they might not get much out of a movie-making assignment.  My greatest fear though is that I would have no idea how to grade such a project.

Gura does a good job of defending these types of movie projects.  He explains that a good film can demonstrate a thorough understanding of the text.  I was also reassured when I was reminded that cameras are fairly ubiquitous these days, and it probably would not be a problem for most students to get their hands on something that can record video.  I could probably take a class day to explain the basics of video editing and then let them explore the programs on their own.  Experimentation is how I learned after all.  Grading may be difficult at first, but I think that I will adapt and learn as I grade more of these types of projects.  Having students write about the film-making process can also assist in the evaluation of the final product.