Friday, February 26, 2010
BBP Slideshow on Rhyming Words
Presentation on rhyming words for first graders
This week for class we were assigned to make a PowerPoint presentation using the three tricks of a "Beyond Bullet Points" (BBP) presentation proposed by Cliff Atkinson. It's so obvious, so simple, so clear, so straight forward. I can't believe I didn't think of this. Haha.
The point in the BBP presentation is to keep things simple; include a title, visual, and you're set to speak.
Atkinson talks about how when people make presentations in the "old way", they try to cram information with bullet points, add semi-meaningful pictures just as a decoration, and then expect their audience to be able to retain all of that information and their vocal presentation at the same time.
It's definitely hard to focus and I, as well as everyone who has professors that use the "old way" of making PowerPoint presentations, struggle during lectures every other day. In my case, I am taking an Anthropology of Linguistics course this semester. The readings are long and it's hard to understand them, let alone pick out the main ideas out of them. I like to take notes on everything, just so that if I forget something, then I can always refer back to my notes for clarification. Well, this class requires a maximum amount of note-taking in my world. My professor uses PowerPoints every session and they clarify the readings' main points, but then again they can't stand alone. His explanations are also extremely important to note to be able to gain a full understanding. Every lecture I find myself trying to keep my attention on both, but it's impossible; I'm constantly tuning in and out.
Atkinson states that our working memory, "the part of your mind where your audience holds their attention", receives information through two channels: visual and verbal. With a BBP presentation, basically, all that you need to include on a slide is a headline that states your main point and a meaningful visual. The audience quickly digests the information on the slide and then they focus their attention back to, the most important part of a presentation, the presenter and what he or she is saying.
BBP presentations look very promising and I highly encourage anyone to refer to the link above next time you're preparing for a presenation.
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I thought this article was really interesting. So many of my teachers use powerpoints and just cram the entire slide full of text. I am never able to listen to what my teacher are saying because I am to busy writing down the text which is on the slides. I think this setup for powerpoints is great! I will definitely set my powerpoints up this way so my students are able to gain the most from them.
ReplyDeleteI liked how the article talked about the outline format in PowerPoint. I thought it was interesting that he said that if you use the same format on every slide, then no one will know what the important slides are on the outline/preview view. I had never heard that before, but it makes complete sense! I thought it was a great article.
ReplyDeleteIt is interesting that it's almost instinctual to lather layers of words onto presentations. Wouldn't it make more sense to think first, "hmm, I have a blank space here. I will use it to outline what I will speak about, not jot down everything I want to say." I'm sure that if I had saved all of my powerpoints, my first would be overwhelmed with text and graphics...and all a busy mess. What I've noticed about technology is that it seems to make everything easier to grapple with: organizational tools and impacting images. The hardest thing is to just keep up with technology, technology that has connected the world and so never sleeps.
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