Sorry about the late post since I didn't look through the to do list thoroughly, I missed the time to submit this post.
This semester I started with a new team and a new topic, then everything rolls back to the very beginning, rationale,objectives(maybe not necessary). Website has different function to face to face instruction as the learning process to me is all about skipping rather than focusing. The traditional learning would always have one focus, the teacher's presentation but the websites flatten the focus and make it a larger view.
For instance, in the past, I would remember clearly what the teacher's said about what to do in a week since my concentration worked with the only focus but now the written list sometimes caused left-overs because my concentration can not adapt to that properly yet, always skipped some important information.
Since the websites can not talk to you, and they are not lineal, nor concentration-oriented, we need to make full use of the other functions to fulfill better presentation.
Our major project in this semester is "helping IST Master Students' Career Plan".It is a practical topic for most of us in the R541 classroom. Our audience are very limited to IST current master students and those who are interested in IST. They are professional, down-to-earth and curious about the future. So we have a thousand ways to ruin the topic but only several correct ways to present it well. I should say, it is hard.
We need the following to make better presentation to our rare but precise stake holders:
1. Clear but useful message.
Though we don't regard us as information provider, we still have to provide some information to the visitors of the website.They don't want to see tedious facts but useful message they can find within several seconds. e.g. "Welcome to IST master student career plan. Career plan is important for all of us.You can see the success of IST students start from good career plan."is a very horrible example that make people want to skip. We provided too much known information but almost zero new message.It is better with"Hello!In the career plan website, you will see..."
2. Authority
It is not news that people doubt the validity of the information on websites.But we still need the grasp the authority sense in our website. It is not easy to keep authority but we would strive to keep the data collection authentically,exclude corrupted interview records and always use validated facts. Then we won't lose our authority in the presentation phase. In a word, presentation is all about convincing people with your authority in one field.Don't ever lose it!
3. Resources we can provide
We would use much connection to the resources in the project and it is one of our major purposes. The more we can provide, the more attraction people would have from us.People would listen to you and believe in you, when you really have something good to say.
4. Sincerity
I should say it is the basic ethic of presentation. If we don't have much good things to say in the presentation, it is not fine but people could understand our limitation, hopefully. But once you cheated and caught in your presentation, you would feel even worse when everyone leaves you and you would face with various punishment based on how serious the situation is. Presentation can be selling, publicizing or something else but not swindling.
5.All about skills
Yes, when we fulfilled all the obligation above, the rest parts are all about skills.Skills are so broad to talk about here.Using color, Layout, Headlines, Banners, Video, Music,Picture cropping, Font, Bold, underlines, hyperlink, flash...
Few of us are born to be excellent presenter.Learning and practice can make us as good in the end!
This semester I started with a new team and a new topic, then everything rolls back to the very beginning, rationale,objectives(maybe not necessary). Website has different function to face to face instruction as the learning process to me is all about skipping rather than focusing. The traditional learning would always have one focus, the teacher's presentation but the websites flatten the focus and make it a larger view.
For instance, in the past, I would remember clearly what the teacher's said about what to do in a week since my concentration worked with the only focus but now the written list sometimes caused left-overs because my concentration can not adapt to that properly yet, always skipped some important information.
Since the websites can not talk to you, and they are not lineal, nor concentration-oriented, we need to make full use of the other functions to fulfill better presentation.
Our major project in this semester is "helping IST Master Students' Career Plan".It is a practical topic for most of us in the R541 classroom. Our audience are very limited to IST current master students and those who are interested in IST. They are professional, down-to-earth and curious about the future. So we have a thousand ways to ruin the topic but only several correct ways to present it well. I should say, it is hard.
We need the following to make better presentation to our rare but precise stake holders:
1. Clear but useful message.
Though we don't regard us as information provider, we still have to provide some information to the visitors of the website.They don't want to see tedious facts but useful message they can find within several seconds. e.g. "Welcome to IST master student career plan. Career plan is important for all of us.You can see the success of IST students start from good career plan."is a very horrible example that make people want to skip. We provided too much known information but almost zero new message.It is better with"Hello!In the career plan website, you will see..."
2. Authority
It is not news that people doubt the validity of the information on websites.But we still need the grasp the authority sense in our website. It is not easy to keep authority but we would strive to keep the data collection authentically,exclude corrupted interview records and always use validated facts. Then we won't lose our authority in the presentation phase. In a word, presentation is all about convincing people with your authority in one field.Don't ever lose it!
3. Resources we can provide
We would use much connection to the resources in the project and it is one of our major purposes. The more we can provide, the more attraction people would have from us.People would listen to you and believe in you, when you really have something good to say.
4. Sincerity
I should say it is the basic ethic of presentation. If we don't have much good things to say in the presentation, it is not fine but people could understand our limitation, hopefully. But once you cheated and caught in your presentation, you would feel even worse when everyone leaves you and you would face with various punishment based on how serious the situation is. Presentation can be selling, publicizing or something else but not swindling.
5.All about skills
Yes, when we fulfilled all the obligation above, the rest parts are all about skills.Skills are so broad to talk about here.Using color, Layout, Headlines, Banners, Video, Music,Picture cropping, Font, Bold, underlines, hyperlink, flash...
Few of us are born to be excellent presenter.Learning and practice can make us as good in the end!
Hi Martin,
ReplyDeleteI think it's a great topic and I believe many of the IST master's students will get the benefit from it once you're done with this project. However, I am a little bit confused in terms of your project topic and the content. It seemed like the topic is showing people how to make their career plan. In my understanding, it could include the process/steps to make a career plan, the skills of finding useful resources, the presentation skills, the process of job application, etc. At first, I thought you were going to teach us how to do the job hunting and job interview instead of focusing on the presentation. I like your content of teaching IST master's students how to do a good presentation. Perhaps be more specific on the project topic/title to be right to the point what people would learn from the website you create? Just my thought. :)