'E'mpowering your Powerpoints and putting them 'out there'

When I finally caught up with a friend over lunch the other day we decided to make it a working meeting at a cafe with wifi in Rathdowne Street so that we could refer to e-stuff as we talked. The subject: how to 'e'-mpower her Powerpoint presies and find the best internet platform for her photography students to share and discuss their photos.

Whilst she's a very experienced commercial photographer who successfully uses Facebook and a blog to further her business networking, she has only recently joined the training fraternity and hadn't given much thought to using Web2 tools to enhance and extend her face2face teaching, probably because in the first few months she's been wrestling with the basic pedagogic issues of delivering content and engaging her students with the best activities to activate their learning.

Once the meal was out of the way, we got the macbook and the netbook out and flicked through one of her presies. I could quickly provide a few tips to improve her slides. She wisely requested my Top Three, so here they are:

1. Determine how much text you want to include and its purpose (headings, dot points, captions for photos, links to websites, thought provoking questions) and strip out the text that would be better part of your oral delivery or discussion.
2. Pull out the material that would better be presented in the form of a Handout - this is the text-rich technical stuff that students might have to refer to again and again.
   Of course, the question remains, what to do with that handout (after you've photocopied it and handed it out)? It could be uploaded using Scribd or Issuu or even uploaded to Google Docs and the link put in the Presie, that way, anyone who missed the class can still get a copy.
   Having removed your Handout, consider how to make it work a lot harder for you, ie set a task that requires the students to refer to it, integrate the subject content, apply it and then synthesise it in answer to your Questions (see next point).
3. And, finally, make your students work harder, ie some of your presie will pose problems or ask questions rather than simply provide content.

We discussed a few more aspects of the layout of the slides like making use of the design templates and including hotlinks, and she showed me how Presenter View works (so that you can see your notes and the trainees can't!) but we didn't get to inserting narration, video or voice files. Nor did we discuss in detail how to publish the presie on the web so that students can revisit it and those, who have missed the session, can catch up.

Having been around the block a few times with publishing slide shows and presies, I suggested unreservedly to try SlideShare, a ubiquitous app for publishing your presies (there are a lot of others but this one endeared itself to me when I managed to work out how to add voice narration and synchronise the slides and voice).

Web sharing and discussing photos
Our photography trainer would like to have a place for the students from her three class groups to share their photos and discuss them. She might also post links to new resources, course materials and events. What should she use that is quick to establish and maintain, and easy for those to pick up who have little exposure to the internet?

A Facebook (Closed) Group would meet all the above needs but only for those people who are already using Facebook and those who are willing to join for this purpose. Some people have a healthy distrust of the Facebook (its privacy settings have been the subject of some bad press) and these people would be excluded from this valuable networking.

Another option we didn't get around to discussing is Google+. Provided that her students all have or are prepared to open a Google (gmail) account, they can operate a discussion group, here called a Circle. Actually, the exclusivity of the circle requires the co-operation of all 'members' - it's not as secure as a Facebook closed Group... so friends of the students might 'drop by' too.

If they choose to, they can Hang out together too (live webconferencing which integrates seamlessly with the Google+ Stream).

And, being part of the Google suite of apps, it links nicely with your Web Albums (if you're using Picasa). And Picasa offers a lot more than Facebook Photo Albums (like local storage, basic editing and neat slide shows, called movies).

STOP PRESS

One of my Google+ mates just shared a notice about a giant Photographers' Hangout where you can listen in and join the discussion amongst some of the world's best (or nerdiest) photographers. I'm not so sure how that web live chat-fest is going to be mediated when 5,000 punters just drop by... here is how it works.

Premieres Oct 4, 2011 at 6:30 pm EST (11:30 pm London).

Sit back and relax, while watching the most engaging photographers on Google+ talk shop. Using Google hangouts, we will have in-depth conversations on interesting topics and facets of photography. Join and interact with inspiring photographers; ask questions, share your enthusiasm and expand your horizons.

Using a mix of platforms, you will be able send us your questions via Google+ and Twitter. We will have six spots in the hangouts taken by our moderators and the guests. The remaining spots will be filled randomly, based the questions that you post in the comments and on twitter (https://twitter.com/photohangouts). 

It's time for my lunch companion to do a quick straw poll to ascertain what her students think about the options.

I think Google+ will be the new social networking 'place to be' for people to engage on a particular topic of interest, like photography. It's clearly less limited than Twitter and better focused (no pun intended) than Facebook, its integration with Web Photo Albums being an added bonus.