Point A to Point B

Month: January 2006

  • The Point of PowerPoint

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    “There is an ever present danger that the excitement of creating multimedia slides and presentations will distract students from the very real and difficult challenge of addressing a human audience, face-to-face, eye-to-eye.”

    – McKenzie, Jamie. “Scoring Power Points.” From Now On 10.1 (Sept. 2000). 30 Jan. 2006 http://www.fno.org/sept00/powerpoints.html.

    The point of PowerPoint is to be a presentation TOOL. It should not be the focus. An excellent presentation is done by a person who knows what they want to say, speaks clearly and confidently, makes eye contact, and connects with his/her audience. PowerPoint can provide visual and audio support to make the presentation better. It cannot (and should not) be a substitute for a good speaker.

    Before you ever start a PowerPoint, know what you want to say. Then, figure out what is most important and highlight that on the slides. Put in supporting material (pictures, audio, etc.) to enhance your speaking points. THEN make it look nice (backgrounds, fonts, etc.).

    The best looking PowerPoint in the world is no good if there is no worthwhile content in it, and no knowledgable speaker in front of it.

  • Keeping Up

    I was teaching an inservice with Mr. Saia today about Internet search strategies. He made a comment that resonated with me – he said, “…the things we are showing you now about searching will all be different in 6 months…” Well, it was something along those lines – maybe not exactly.

    The point is, the Internet changes constantly…new ideas, new technologies…keeping up can be tough. Maybe that’s why we “surf” the Internet rather than “swim”? Maybe we need a jet-ski?

  • Knee Surgery, Anyone?

    Edheads (www.edheads.org) is a cool site where you can learn some stuff about weather, simple machines, and yes, knee surgery. Check it out to try your hand at being a surgeon!

  • Search Tip

    Tuesday’s Technology Tip
    (Little bits of information to hopefully make your computing life easier)

    Google is by far the most popular search engine, but certainly not the only one. Each search engine has its own “formula” for finding results. Google provide results based on how many sites link to the result sites. Teoma (www.teoma.com) provides results based on how many sites link to the result sites within the subject being searched, and also offers tips for refining a search and resources from experts.

    This is easier to see by doing – try a search for Martin Luther King in both Google and Teoma to compare. Also see the following link for a comparison of 3 “big” search engines – Google, Yahoo!, and Teoma. http://www.infopeople.org/search/guide.html

  • Music Notation Software

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    Mr. Marinaccio’s classes just started coming into the lab to notate their rhythmic speech compositions. We are using the free version of the notation program Finale, called Finale NotePad. You can download and use this program at home as well. To get the download, click here

    Happy composing!

  • Backup Tip

    Tuesday’s Technology Tip
    (Little bits of information to hopefully make your computing life easier)

    Backing up files for permanent storage is best done with CDs. All new Dells purchased this year, along with all eMacs in the lab (plus some other Macs in the building) have CD burners.

    On Dells, use Roxio Easy CD Creator to burn CDs. To find Roxio, click on Start | Programs | Applications | Roxio Easy CD Creator

    On Macs, you can burn CDs directly from the desktop.

  • Happy New Year!

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    PC Magazine has posted The 50 Greatest Gadgets of the Past 50 Years. Without showing my age TOO much, let’s just say I own/owned at least 4 or 5 of the goodies on the list. While the box on the right may look like a dinosaur (and if you saw the graphics on it you would laugh), in its heyday it was awesome.
    Some parents may have one of these in the closet – its an Atari Video Computer System (later called the Atari 2600).

    Interesting that no. 1 and no. 2 on the list are portable music players. Look at the list and think about why some of the items are there. Then, think about a tech gadget you use now that may make the list in 50 years.