SlideShare

I am a huge fan of SlideShare (www.slideshare.net) and other presentation hosting tools. If for no other reason, these tools allow me — I no longer print out copies of my slides to handout (which by the way I have argued elsewhere is never a good idea because we should instead be thinking about how we can hand out short, ideally, one page handouts). But these tools offer many other benefits:

–Makes one’s work available to a larger audience
–Gives one easy place to direct people to (e.g., go to www.slideshare.net/plowenthal to see my presentations…)
–Allows one the ability to track how many times their presentations have been viewed, added as a favorite, tweeted
–Allows one the ability to embed presentations across multiple web sites and learning management systems
–The ability to find others with similar interests
–Share one’s work with other educators
–Find open education resources for one’s class

And the list goes on. But I just noticed that you can also create playlists. So here is an example of a SlideShare playlist.

| Get your SlideShare Playlist

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Lessons Learned Presenting at Conferences

I am a strong believer in attending and presenting at conferences for professional development.  Each year I try to attend the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) –http://www.aera.net/AnnualMeeting.htm — as well as the annual meeting of the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT) – http://www.aect.org/events/.

As a side note, in addition, whenever possible I also attend ISTE’s – http://center.uoregon.edu/ISTE/2010/ — Sloan-C’s – http://www.sloanconsortium.org/aln — and EDUCAUSE’s –http://net.educause.edu/ConferencesSeminarsandInstitutes/31 — conferences to name a few.

So when I plan to attend a conference, I strive whenever possible to also present at the conference.  Often, I will even try to present more than once.

Well this last fall I went a little overboard and during basically a three week stretch I presented  11 times at three different conferences (two of the presentations though involved two parts so it was actually only 9 different sessions).  To be fair, when I originally completed the conference proposals, I never expected to have them all accepted. But through this process I learned a few things that I will take with me moving forward:

1. Never present more than 3 times — ideally strive for only 2 presentations — at a conference.
I enjoy attending sessions as much as I do presenting at sessions but I found that when I attend a conference where I present more than 2-3 times, I rarely attend that many sessions because I am spending most of my time preparing for my own sessions. Also, be prepared that they might accept any and all proposals you submit so think twice before sending in a bunch of different proposals.  If you want to present 2-3 times, only send in 3-4 proposals (assuming at least one will not be approved).

2. Always bring business cards to each session.

3. Find the room you are planned to present in.
Checkout the room you plan to present in before your session to get an idea of the location, room size, layout, Internet access… to name a few. During EDUCAUSE 09 I spent over 30 minutes trying to locate the room where the poster sessions were being held.  I barely found it in time to put up my poster before the session began.

4. Show Up Early.
Be sure to show up at the room earlier enough right before your session to ensure that such things as an LCD projector are  there.   At AECT, the hotel would remove the LCD projectors at the end of the day which meant that the first sessions each day often began with a rush to locate an LCD projector.

5. Create Handouts.
See Tufte’s work about this — or check out  Improving the Design of PowerPoint Presentations or a Review of the Cognitive Style of PowerPoint — but avoid giving copies of your slides as handouts.  If you want to give a handout (and I recommend it), then create a handout–ideally no longer than one page (front and back).

6. Determine the how many handouts you need.
Ask people who have presented in the past and/or the conference staff how many people typically attend each session so that you can have the right number of handouts. Most presentations, in my experience, tend to have 10-15 attendees. Therefore, you are often safe with 20-25 handouts.  However, during my last three week conference stretch, I had one session with over 75 people in it and another with about 35.

6. Post the slides online.
While I am not a fan of handing out my PowerPoint slides as handouts, I do try to post my slides online so others (both who attend the conference and those who didn’t) can access my slides.  But rather than giving out some long URL (e.g., http://www.slideshare.net/plowenthal/educause-2009-tweeting-the-night-away-using-twitter-to-enhance-social-presence) or even using a tinyurl (e.g., http://tinyurl.com/ybjepyr)  which might confuse people, simply point them to a Webpage with all of your presentations (e.g., http://www.slideshare.net/plowenthal).

7. Avoid traveling on a day you present.
This might be silly but try to avoid this if possible. At AECT this past fall I had to present on Halloween but I really wanted to get home in time to trick or treat with my kids.  I carefully picked my flight to help make this all happen but guess what…  my flight was delayed.

I am sure I am forgetting a few things but this list is a start.

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The CU Online Handbook

Check out The CU Online Handbook!

The CU Online Handbook

Edited by
Patrick R. Lowenthal
David Thomas
Anna Thai
Brian Yuhnke

Download the eBook
Download the entire eBook (pdf)

Download Individual Chapters

Introduction
Patrick R. Lowenthal

Trends and Issues with Online Learning
1. From Reluctant and Reticent to Engaged and Enthusiastic: The Passage to Online Teaching
Susan Giullian

2. Preparing Special Education Teachers Through Online Instruction
Donna Sobel

3. Using eCollege to Facilitate Learning, Provide for Program Coherence, Manage Accountability Innovations, and Ensure the Evolution of a Principal Licensure Program
Connie Fulmer

4. Make, Share, Find: Web 2.0 and Informal Learning
Phil Antonelli

Technology in Action
5. The Advantages of a Ning Social Network Within a Higher Education Program
Laura Summers

6. Fresh and Forward-thinking: Using Blogs for Educational Purposes
Joanna C. Dunlap & Ellen Stevens

7. Hanging on by a Thread
Dorothy F. Garrison-Wade

8. Instructional Uses of Twitter
Joanna C. Dunlap & Patrick R. Lowenthal

9. Using Audio for Giving Feedback to Project Teams: A Useful Complement to Track Changes
Brent G. Wilson

10. Wordle… Just for Phluff?
Joanna C. Dunlap

11. A Teaching Video Project Brought to Closure
Farah A. Ibrahim

12. Improving the Design of PowerPoint Presentations
Patrick R. Lowenthal

Emerging Tools and Applications

Resources
Down-and-dirty Guidelines for Effective Discussions in Online Courses
Joanna C. Dunlap

Protocols for Online Discussions
Joanna C. Dunlap

Improving the Odds of Effective Collaborative Work in Online Courses
Joanna C. Dunlap

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