Presenting in basic black

I'm only wearing black until they make something darker. - t-shirt slogan

Actually, it will be my presentations wearing basic black, not me.

I'm doing a lot of revising of my keynotes, breakout sessions, and workshops this summer, especially my PowerPoint slides. I have these major goals

• To update all information (this is ongoing, anyway).
  
• To use ever fewer words, and better, more meaningful images.
  
• To strive for simplicity and clarity on all slides.

Steve Jobs has taught many of us that too many colors and too many words are unnecessary - even distracting - when getting one's point across. I don't remember a single set of bullet points in Al Gore's effective presentation of An Inconvenient Proof - he made his case visually. And how!

As I revise, I am just selecting a black background, using Arial as my standard font, and making sure each image says something - either as information or affect. (I can't bring myself to give up my HPLUKs and HPTechnologyUKs.)

See what you think... 

Old slide

New slide

 No more agonizing over what background color or font to use. Just the focus on the message. What a concept.

Maybe I can apply this to my wardrobe as well 

Kudos to Dryburgh and Tulip

The audience was large and rowdy. The room was crowded. The people presenting just before the session wouldn't get their stuff out of the way. The equipment was balky. People were floating in and out. Sound like a real live conference presentation?

The crowd grows restless. See the blue geek ready to heckle?

This happened to be at a real Second Life conference presentation given by Kathy (Schrock) Dryburgh this morning at 8AM SLT as a part of the Second Life Best Practices in Education International Conference.  Despite the problems at the very start, the talk was absolutely terrific.

Kathy uses her powers of telekinesis to position the  white board where her slides will appear.

Using an in-world presentation device,  Kathy used nearly 60 slides to show the educational possibilities of Second Life.  She's posted a  resource list is on her blog and a tape of her presentation will be forthcoming from slcn.tv. The "talk" - IM'd text that accompanied the slides - was clear, useful and exciting. It worked.

 

BlueSkunk visits with Elaine Tulip at the CPS poster session.

I also had a chance to stop by Elaine Tulip's (Lisa Perez) poster session at the event. The Chicago Public School Library Department was well represented. I was inspired a few weeks ago by Lisa's presentation on Second Life at a library conference near Chicago and I continue to be impressed by her department's presence in Second Life.

I am in total awe of these two educators. Their knowledge and understanding of this new medium amazes me of course, but I even more astounded by their bravery for putting themselves out there - presenting and displaying in this unpredictable and even controversial new environment. These are very brave people.

Many educators seem to have a reticence about Second Life as a teaching tool, even those folks I would otherwise consider  visionaries in other ways. Yes, Second Life has an "adult" side to it. Yes, it is crash prone, slow and unreliable. Yes, there is a steep learning curve to creating content for it.

Yes, it sounds just like the WWW of about 10-12 years ago. (Doesn't anyone else remember Mosaic and three minute page re-draws?)

I am also convinced that many of us can't quite reconcile "fun" and "useful." Every time I've gone into Second Life I've really had fun and I wonder if anything this enjoyable can possibly be good for a person. It's my inner Puritan.

Anyway, thanks Kathy and Elaine. You've made this new environment really exciting for many of us.

I hope everyone has a great Memorial Day weekend (if you celebrate). I am off to see my beautiful grandsons and their beautiful parents this weekend and I am doing workshops in Olathe, KS, next week, so I'm signing off the blog for a few days. See you in June.

Oh, I visited with a fellow who dances with his wife in Second Life whenever he is away from home. I couldn't decide whether this was sweet or sort of weird and pathetic.

I've come down on the side of sweet.  

How to get an IWB in our district

This is the second year of a multi (6?) year plan to install projectors, sound systems and interactive white boards in all classrooms in our district. We have the budget to put in 62 more this year. We have about 100 teachers who have indicated an interest in them this year.

We ask teachers who want this equipment to submit a proposal for the installation. It's a one page form that simply asks the teacher what s/he is planning to do with equipment, if there is anything unique about the possible ways in which the equipment will be used, and if the teacher is willing to put in the (paid) hours for training.

An interesting proposal came in this morning. It included not only the completed one page application, but also:

About 30 pages of research, links and ideas of IWB use (including a good article from Mary Ann Bell) titled "Why Use an Interactive Whiteboard?" along with

A very clever digital movie demonstrating the Top Ten Reason's Ms Rogers' classroom needs an IWB, and

handwritten letters from students asking for the equipment.

How do they know I am such a sucker for this sort of thing? Were it solely up to me, Ms Rogers would get TWO IWBs.

This technology has been more popular than I had imagined it would be. With the teachers, of course, but also with the kids. My reports are that kids are requesting teachers based on who has a SmartBoard in their room.

I like any technology that gets kids excited about school. Not profound, but true.