Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Copyright Presentation-Update 3

Here it is the new presentation update after reading chapters 5,6 and 7.

I changed some of the images to create more impact on the audience and added a cartoon to make some connections trough humor.


They Snooze you Lose by Burmark - Chapter 7

In chapter seven, Images, Burmark explains how images and visual content helps the presenter to get the point across to the audience. Sometimes by using one imagine we can accomplish more than explaining abstract content to students that they have no idea how to apply to the real world. Our slides should be illustrative; we need to limit the quantity of words we use in each slide. Having less words and one imagine per slide will help learners to connect content with visuals, and therefore they will remember it easily. Sizing and placing images it is also very important, programs such as Photoshop and iStockphoto are very helpful to resize pictures and to edit them in order to make them illustrative for our presentations. Color can make the difference if we want to emphasize words or content in our slides. We as educators need to remember that adding pictures to our presentations leads to a better recall.

They Snooze you Lose by Burmark - Chapter 6

In chapter six, Harnessing Humor, Burmark give details in how to use humor in our presentations. We can have activities that will make students learn by having fun. These activities can be short stories, poems, recipes, etc. Burmark recommends to use neotenous pranks, also jokes, cartoons but most important to establish humor so that our students get contagious and get to work while having fun, which is going to make them want to work more. Burmark mentions that Surprise is other important aspect of humor that we can use to engage students in the content of our presentation that will improve the learning process in the classroom. By making students laugh does not mean that they are not learning, actually if we as teachers want to get the content across, first of all we need our students attention; once we have it, we can use some humor to keep them engaged in it will make it easier for them to remember the concepts learned.

They Snooze you Lose by Burmark - Chapter 5

In chapter five, Making Connections, Burmark explains that if we associate the abstract concepts with something concrete, will help us understand it better.
We can make connections by recalling prior knowledge, for example having some jokes that recall prior knowledge to make them funny, sequencing historical events or using flash cards with images and words.
Another method that helps to the connection process is to compare and contrast. By comparing two options visually it is going to help the decision process easier. Making physical connection between the presenter and the audience it is very important to engage public’s attention that will make the presentation effective. Using humor it is also a good tool to connect with our audience or students. I completely agree with this chapter because sometimes I am putting my best effort in present a lecture and the students are not getting the concept, by making connections using the strategies described in the book, it will be easier for them to relate the concept to their previous knowledge.

Friday, September 23, 2011

Copyright Presentation-Update 2

Here it is the new presentation update after reading chapters 3&4.
Since Chapter 3 and 4 are about the presenter I could not change the content of my presentation.


They Snooze you Lose by Burmark - Chapter 4


In Chapter 4, Burmarck explains that in the world of education, teachers not only need to get things done, but also well done. She mentions that in order to be effective, we need to get our students attention and also make the presentation stick to their minds. To make the presentation memorable, Burmarck presents the acronym CHIMES. That means that we need to use Connections, Humor, Images, Music, Emotions, Story, and our Senses. I had never read about it, but I do agree with Burmarck because we need to make a connection with our students to facilitate transferring our knowledge to them. Since they all have different learning styles it is essential to include all of the characteristics that Burmarck is suggesting in order to get the point across to our audience in such a way that we make it contagious so that our audience could go and teach others.

They Snooze you Lose by Burmark - Chapter 3


They Snooze, You Lose Chapter 3 it is all about the presenters. It starts by giving the characteristics of the three broad categories of presenters that exist according to Burmarck:
The lecturer: it is the presenter that does not engage the students and responds all of his questions by himself.
The entertainer: the presenter that offers performances that invites the audience to get away from reality.
The motivational speaker: it is the presenter that inspires us and has an impact on our lives.
In order to be effective, presenters should present certain characteristics from each of the three categories of presenters that were mentioned. So, Burmarck suggests creating a new category:
The educator: it is the presenter that empowers students to retain and transfer learning. The example that she uses is Steve Jobs, because he informs, engages and inspires his audience.
Burmarck then outlines the 10 tips from Steve Jobs, which could help educators to make powerful presentations:
  1. Have fun
  2. Toss the script
  3. Use your body
  4. Pause for effect
  5. Dress appropriately
  6. Change it up
  7. Provide a headline
  8. Do the preparation
  9. Be the presentation
  10. Present what you love

 When I conducted my self-assessment to pick some of this tips to use on my next presentations, I chose #1 and #10 Have fun and Present what you love. For many reasons I am personally feeling frustrated with my assignments this year. I am teaching 3 different math classes and I am almost on a rush every day to keep in track with the sequence of the courses that I forgot to present the math in a fun way to my students. I know that I could be an inspiration for them, but I am having a hard time getting real examples so that students can understand how math is applied in the every day life. I do love math, but lately I feel so overwhelmed that I think my students do not feel that I am presenting what I do actually love. I also need to adjust my presentations in order to engage all types of learners so they can see me as en enthusiastic educator. I guess I have now all the tools and tips to become the “Steve Jobs” for math.

Sunday, September 18, 2011

Copyright Presentation-Update 1

I have updated the Copyright presentation according to what I leard in the first two chapters of the Book: They Snooze You lose by Burmark.
The list of the changes is the following:
1- I got rid of the template in order to add more color to my presentation.
2- I added several images to my presentation since I had none in the first one.
3- I tried to get ride of some redundant information in order to have less words per slide and make the font bigger.
4- I updated the resources list with the copyright information of the images I used in the presentation.


They Snooze you Lose by Burmark - Chapter 2



Chapter 2 is about creating slides and handouts. Burmark encourage presenters to use as many visuals in our slides as we can. Mayer’s research confirms that the best way to foster learning involves both words and pictures.1 The audience will remember more the pictures than the words.
In the handouts we need to make sure to include the outline of the presentation with the most significant information, we need to make sure to not include visuals.
According to Burmark the electronic presentation needs to have full-color photographic illustrations and the paper handout full of boring black-and-white text that would be a waste on the screen.
Although many presenters use to give the URL for the website at the beginning of the presentation, it is important for the audience to get at least a copy of the handout to make notes and write comments that in most of the cases would forget by the time the presentation ends. The handouts should be in two-column format and with limited pictures with margins that allow the audience to write comments on it.

I completely agree with the author, many of the presentations I have seen are bored because they lack images. On the other hand, the handouts should not be printed in color with all the images you may see on the presentation because it is a waste of ink and paper.


1 Mayer, Richard E., Multimedia Learning (2nd ed.) (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009)

They Snooze you Lose by Burmark - Chapter 1



I found the book They Snooze You lose by Burmark very easy to read and useful for us as educators. Its first chapter “Tweaking Presentations” focuses on three important characteristics of presentations, which are templates, color and type.
The author invite us to carefully select the template we will use in our presentation by making sure the visuals draw the eye to the left of the screen, since we read from left to right. Besides that, we need to be aware that the template’s decorations or embellishments are not “so distracting” that the audience focuses more on them than in the topic of our presentation.
Obviously our presentations will be more attractive and interesting if we add color to them. It is not only the fact to add any color to our presentation, but to choose the more adequate colors. Burmark mentions that when it comes to quick vision, the human eye sees faster the yellow color. According to Wagner, warm colors (yellows, reds) are seen before cool colors (greens, blues.1 Therefore, when making a presentation we should choose cool colors for the background and warm colors for the text.
Regarding the type of our presentation, we need to reduce the number of lines in our slides in order to use the appropriate font size. According to Burmark, the typeface we selected needs to match our content. Also the typeface we use should be easy to read (lowercase) and with enough space between the letters.

Personally I have seen presentations that have color and different fonts, yes, but 50 different colors and/or fonts in the same slide it is not OK!... that makes the presentation completely awful and distracting at the same time. As presenters we need to make sure to choose the right colors and fonts to make our presentations appealing to the public.

1 Wagner, Carlton, Color Power (Chicago: Wagner Institute for Color Research, 1985), p 103.

Sunday, September 4, 2011

Copyrights

To be honest, I had never put too much attention on copyrights. However, during this week assignment I learned a lot about the effects of copyrighted works.  As teachers we should be aware of how much we can copy and/or use at our schools. During this project I learned how to identify if the material we would like to use is copyrighted and where to get permission to use it in case we need it.