Logan Freeman

Professor Ruth Benander

English 2089

14 October 2022

Project Development Update #1

So far, in week 8, I have been developing my project and preparing to share it with my community next week. My project consists of a slideshow presentation which is meant to teach the community of high school students in IT classes about how to create proper slideshow presentations. On Thursday of week 8, I sat in the classes I plan to teach in order to observe and figure out how I will present my presentation on Tuesday of week 9. I discussed my ideas with the teacher of these classes and made sure everything was in line technology and time wise. In fact, the students of her “Fundamentals of IT” class are working on a slideshow of their own. This gave me an even better opportunity to see the faults in how these students are creating their slideshows. With this knowledge, I can refine my own presentation to their specific needs as an audience, and engage them further. This kind of information will be useful to my community because it is never really taught in high school. As well as this, I want to get them excited so that they retain the knowledge and maybe even develop a passion. I look forward to pursuing this change in my community so that there is a chance that it will truly make a difference.

I have not yet completed my slideshow presentation as of writing this, so some information I give may change. Here is a link to view it as I develop it: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1bHFYCwfWlxfE7msU1RIDx6y_ELk2i28Sl75Dfh-h1nM/edit?usp=sharing. Though, I do have a good run down and list of ideas I want to focus on. My biggest focus when making this slideshow presentation is my audience, as I want to tailor my slideshow to how I believe these students will learn. As well as this, I will also present in a manner which is exciting and hopefully even mindblowing to really gain their attention. Beginning with my first slide, I wanted to define who I am. I feel as though this is important because giving this information will inform the students of my qualifications and hopefully they will connect with me better. Next, I wanted to give an overview of what a slideshow presentation is and why the information in my presentation is useful for their future. In this slide I also display how I will teach this format, which is to split into two parts, the slideshow (visual) and the presentation (verbal). In each section or category I will go more in-depth into the tactics and rules students should be aware of in creating proper slideshows. In the category for creating slideshows, I put two separate sections one for “Digital Design” and one for “Representing Information”. Each section will include what I believe to be important points, where I will elaborate on each as talking points. Then I will give examples of good and bad slideshow design, and point out why each may be determined as this. Next, for the presentation category, I have one section so far called “Giving a Presentation”. Where again there are important points that I will elaborate on further with my verbal aspect, such as being excited in your topic. Then I will give good and bad examples of presentation styles. After this, I will define the most important thing to focus on while giving a slideshow presentation, which is your audience. If you know your audience you should be aware of their needs and consider that when designing your presentation. Next, I wanted to define why and when students should consider using slideshow presentations. I will go into detail about the pros and cons of this format, and why particular scenarios can really benefit from its use. I might put some fun effects in here too. Second to last, I wanted to give the students their assignment that will solidify the knowledge I presented. This assignment will have students in my community create their own slideshow with at least one slide about their favorite topic. To lessen the possibility of decision fatigue I will help provide ideas to students who are having trouble deciding. With this assignment students will be given the opportunity to practice their skills in digital design and representing information. Unfortunately, the presentation aspect of this will not be able to be represented by this assignment due to time constraints. Finally, the most impactful piece of my slideshow presentation is my demonstration of creating a proper slideshow. This demo will reflect what students will be creating in their assignments and give them a better idea of what to do for their project. In this demo, I will create a slide of my own in a step-by-step process where I will explain each individual step I use. This part of the presentation should take up the most time due to the depth I would like to go into. Though, my ultimate goal in every aspect of my slideshow presentation is to get these students excited and to inspire them! I really feel like they need this kind of excitement as this format is truly an awesome innovation of technology.