Enhancing Student Presentations, Essay Example

Abstract

Media aids for student presentations are forever shape-shifting. Twenty years ago, students gave presentations using projectors, handouts, chalkboards and slides. Often, the visual aid made the complex idea hazier to understand because of mismatching or incongruity to the subject matter. Today the student has many media aids available to tailor a well-written presentation to the aid itself. This helps with clarity, audience comprehension and overall success because it enhances abstract theories or complex lesson plans and makes it easier for the audience to understand.

Enhancing Student Presentations: Media Types, Pitfalls and Successes Judged upon Audience Attention and Reaction

To truly appreciate current media technology in the context of a student presentation, one needs to time-travel back to middle school. Accompanying yesteryear’s science lesson were old media visual aids—pamphlets, handouts, chalkboards, posters, flip charts, projector slides and overhead transparencies—and students often were more befuddled when trying to connect visual aids to the material itself. Modern student’s presentations incorporate visual, audio and sometimes tactile methods to streamline their media aids to fit their words. To give thoughts and images a high-impact punch, techno-savvy students often combine media aids or use them to interact with the audience.

The world of media aids is forever expanding. Common aids include computer software, photos, video, sound and animation. Marketing guru Godwin (2005) gives sound advice on designing appropriate messages for accompanying visuals. In light of visual aids escalating the attention of the spoken word by 70 percent, he encourages [student speakers] to invite the audience to brainstorm ideas; i.e. identifying sound- or video-clips, questioning context, or using a physical prop to amplify an abstract idea.

A complex idea often needs media aids when one considers the wide range of a student audience’s cognitive and perceptual abilities (McLaughlin, Rogers, Sierra, Jr., and Fisk, 2007, p. 385). Additionally, students retain more information from a lesson if multi-sensory aids are used, rather than just listening to a lecture. If the information is too complex, it belongs in a handout rather than on a screen. Since humans use metaphors to understand challenging concepts, most of one’s thinking is organized like a story so that abstract and material ideas will help in the understanding of complicated lessons or theories in the classroom.

Some ideas for media aids include animation which is giving life or motion to a stationary object; i.e., rapidly displaying two- and three-dimensional image sequences to create an illusion of movement (Laybourne, 1998, p. 49). Another idea is an interactive whiteboard which resembles a physical whiteboard. The interactive whiteboard allows remote users to view a screen simultaneously. Another way to aid a student presentation is by zooming programs; i.e., instead of using individual slides, ideas are presented on one infinite canvas where content is presented simultaneously. Instead of a linear presentation, one has the option to give enhanced detail and a better overview of complex visuals.

Visuals should have correct colors. For instance, the eyes perceive the color yellow first (yellow fire engines, McDonald’s golden arches), while the color red should be seldom used as red denotes danger or alert. Blue is a good background color because it is a favorite color, and dark blue denotes trust. Likewise, green denotes renewal, while grey and brown denote negativity and should never be used (Richards, 2006, p. 24).

Future directions in media aids for student presentation might be a type of polymedia approach. According to technology expert Davis (1990), the latest innovation in database technology is a multimedia database that uses diverse data types (text, numbers, graphics, audio, video). The multimedia database uses data structures called B.L.O.B.S. (binary large objects) that is capable of holding up to 2G bytes of diverse data (p. 194). Imagine a student with this technology at his or her fingertips when making a presentation. Polymedia is really about “polymorphic transformation” whereby students combine their personal computer information with generalized data on other mainframes. As a result, each user’s experience of the data’s media and their interaction with the information will be unique and a matter of their own personal choice (Davis, 1990, p. 194).

References

Davis, F. (1990, Nov. 5). The “polymedia” approach to information control. PC Week, 7.44,194.

Godwin, S. (2005, Sept. 28). The “Godin Method” of presentation design. Retrieved from http://presentationzen.blogs.com/presentationzen/2005/09/the_godin_metho.html.

Laybourne, K. (1998). The animation book. New York, NY: Three Rivers Press.

McLaughlin, A. C., W. A. Rogers, E. A. Sierra, Jr., and A. D. Fisk. (2007). The effects of Instructional media: identifying the task demand/media match. Learning, Media and Technology, 32(4), 381-405.

Richards, J. C. (2006). Communicative language teaching today. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.