moving on

When I took one of my regular PowerPoints and analysed it, I saw that I could easily reduce the text content down. but then - what would I be left with?

Further reflection led me to a search for the meaning behind my presentation. I asked myself the question - "if students only remembered 10 things about my presentation what should they be?" Next I looked for the affective dimension - how to capture the emotions.

I decided to use photographs as backgrounds and limit the text to just a few words - essentially a single thought or comment. Pare everything back to the essence and match the pictures very carefully with the message I want to give. This was an interesting concept to work with - the visual and the text working together.

I spent ages looking through my own photographs and then started to look through the web. I found a wonderful site called morguefiles.com. This site stores photographs that are free to use - provided attribution is made. By combining my own and other photographs gradually my powerpoint took shape. This process took 4 hours one Sunday afternoon

I tested the powerpoint on various colleagues and the members of the DIL project and got great feedback. "I wish all our lecturers would make PowerPoints like that " said one of our student DIL project members, which was very encouraging. I can't wait to try it out with my own students.

I know that it will take a significant investment of time to change all my presentations to this style, especially as I will also have to produce handouts to go with them. I feel it will give me back the flexibility and creativity in my teaching that I have been craving.

Looking at my presentations in readiness for the next semester of teaching I was totally aware of how many times I was using the templates in powerpoint as backgrounds and how often i have seen those same backgrounds in my colleagues presentations too. On reflection how lacking in originality

Taking the text off the PowerPoints means that I can also be more creative in how I present the content information to students too. My aim is to produce a one to two page handout per powerpoint. I am going to look at "Course Genie" software to see how this might integrate.

One of the things I would like to know now is how to have the PowerPoint notes pages visible on my front desk computer and the slide show version through the data show.

I have bought a new digital camera to use - a shockproof, waterproof Olympus. I can safely carry this around with me - and already I am beginning to capture images that will provide backgrounds for my future slide shows.