Making Killer Presentations

Too often when students give slideshow presentations they waste everyone's time. 

There, I said it.

Now, this is partly due to poor presentation techniques ("death by PowerPoint"), but mostly due to our changing information environment and evolving learning methods. So, even a very good presentation by past standards may not be good anymore.

In short, when we can all access a wealth of information on any topic, why would we put up with it being rehashed (often less adequately) in class? When we know that active and participatory learning beats more passive modes, why would we tolerate any format that is essentially an info monologue?

I want to do three things in this post: evaluate the relative evil of the slide show presentation format; introduce a great resource for avoiding "death by PowerPoint"; and finally, recommend four components for a killer presentation.

Let me quickly add that a killer presentation may not in fact be the best vehicle for the teaching or learning that is needed. But if we do use them, then let's use them well. 

Tools for Collaboration

A basic activity of the digital age is self organizing using readily available (often free) online tools and social media. In terms of digital literacy, to take needed action in the world we must have tools to CONSUME information; CREATE content; and CONNECT with others. Tools will vary over time in their utility, but whatever suite of tools you have, make sure they help you in those three areas. I want to focus briefly on the last of these, CONNECT.


Obviously by requiring our students to use Google+ and to post links there to their blogs, this enables connecting (as well as consuming and creating). But as one starts to move into collaborating on presentations or on projects, Google+ is not enough. Here is a short list of essential collaboration tools that we recommend:

Social Bookmarking - The Diigo Digital Civilization Group

Of all the digital tools I have learned, I think social bookmarking to be among the most regularly useful. It has brought order to all the constant surfing and research I do online. It's not that hard to learn, and you'll end up getting more mileage out of your online work.

Dr. Zappala uses the delicio.us bookmarking service, which is great. I have been using Diigo. We've decided to require students to learn and use Diigo because it is well suited for academic purposes. I'm glad that Kevin has posted about Diigo and has an account going already. We'd like you to get an account and then join the Digital Civilization bookmarking group I've set up on Diigo. Read on for more of an explanation and instructions on getting started.