How to Make a Bad Presentation

So I think Microsoft PowerPoint is probably the simplest program to use horribly wrong in the entire Windows suite. While everyone thinks that they know how to create a perfect presentation, I have compiled a list of my top five PowerPoint pet peeves in an attempt to dispel some presentation myths and mistakes.

1. LOTS OF TEXT - Having waaay too much text does not mean you say more, in fact, PowerPoint is a true champion of minimalism, and often embodies the literary truth that less is more, more or less.

2. Too Much Animation - Lots of moving pictures and text are an attention deficit nightmare. If your PowerPoint has to have a surgeon general's warning that it may cause seizures, then it probably isn't getting the message across.

3. Overpowering Music - Music can be a huge helper for most presentations, and can even be the difference between a bad presentation and a good presentation when used properly, but even good music can go horribly wrong if it drowns out the presenter.

4. Don't Just Read What's on the Page - The slides are meant to guide, but too often they become the main device of communication within a presentation. If notes are being used, they should be directly to the point, but should be expansive and shine light on the bullet points presented on the slides.

5. Not Proofreading Slides - It takes very little to destroy even the best buildups, but poor spelling ensures that that even a good presentation will crash and fail.

Excelleration

So I think the best thing about learning excel now is that I won't have to deal with learning about it later. So far I've learned a great number of new things about the program, such as the proper use of formulas to calculate standard deviation and to discern an absolute cell reference. I find these formulas especially useful because they make calculations far more simple and help to reduce the amount of effort and time spent making them. The useful experience I have gained here with the use of formulas and charts and other goodies would be easily applicable in a business field, or any teaching field so that they could easily calculate averages and standard deviations.

Picture Perfect

So I was looking at the picture of Katie Couric on the image website, and it made me think about the capabilities of our photo-editing software and the goods and ills that come with it. In this particular case, I was drawn to the image of the popular starlet because of the incredible effect the seemingly light touches had on the overall effectiveness of the picture without subsequently changing its meaning. The picture, a photo of Couric originally released in May by CBS, is manipulated to make Couric appear thinner and less, well, orange than the original capture. THe colors are lightened, and the picture cropped so that the colors are less abrasive to the eye, an effect that helps Couric seem more vibrant and lively. She is also slimmed in the picture so that she does not appear overweight. Although these changes are certainly noticeable from one frame to the next, I would certainly not label them harmful by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, one of the reasons I decided to discuss this particular picture was because of the drastically altered visual efectiveness based on comparitively little change.

CLT

The CLT room is full of little goodies just waiting for us, the students, to take advantage of. Having never been there before, I was pleasantly surprised by the wide array of things available to aid in any technological needs I might have.

First, the opening room in the CLT contains up to date computers with an array of useful software and capabilities. Most of them are equipped with film editing software, Sony Vega for the PC's and iMovie for the Mac's. From the main room, Learning @ CLT, we wandered into another room that was a dedicated study room equipped with surround sound and an overhead projector equipped to play movies. This room bordered another with music editing software that was generally reserved for music classes. We were told that professor's approval is necessary in order to access this room.

From the music room, we went to the production center for Tiger TV and saw the setup thatallows for the filming of Trinity's own programing. This room was under surveilance constantly to protect the valuable materials therein.

Copyrights and Copywrongs

In the intellectual sphere it is easy to get caught up in the fair use frenzy and forget about the need to adequately respect copyright law. I think we have all, at some point or another, taken an image for a presentation, or made copies of a paper without the express permission of the copyright holder and thought nothing of it, but even as the digital age marches on, it remains necessary that we respect and uphold the rights and privelidges guaranteed to copyright holders.

As I listened to the lecture in class about copyright law, it occurred to me that I had personally been guilty of more than one infraction on the law, and that realization helped to reinforce in my mind why copyright law is so important. But there was one issue above all of the others that really stood out to me, and that was the ferocity by which the RIAA seems to stalk the university setting.

On the one hand, it makes sense to me that the music industry should make every attempt to secure its assets in order to keep from being overrun by the wide-scale downloading epidemic that has broken the monopolistic hold it once had, but on the other hand it seems that targeting the academic sphere is more than a little unfair. As was brought up in class, only 4% of all music downloading comes from universities, yet a fair majority of high level takedowns have been against Trinity itself. This proverbial witch hunt only serves to make the RIAA look even more domineering and oppressive to the individual consumer and, in my opinion, encourages further illegal action.

But to the defense of the RIAA, it is much more difficult to monitor the individual actions of every person downloading in today's internet environment. A strict monitoring of the academic setting helps to ensure a successful prosecutorial run by the RIAA on every subpoena, and the university IP addresses are easier to track than those of individual pirates; not to mention, any suspected action instantly gives the RIAA the upper hand since it constitutes a violation of the university fair use policy.

Even with both sides of the argument considered, I would say I have to err on the side of the induvidual. It seems to me that the RIAA wants to overassert its authority by individually prosecuting file sharers and by focussing mostly on academic setting. Personally, I think that the real threat to the recording industry is not from file sharing in academia, but rather from the individuals who have become fed up with paying exhorbidant prices for music.

-Steve