Image Search Engines

The most popular image search engine, of course, is Google Image Search. However,  threeother engines have built upon the Google resources to provide a better interface and greater options.

imagery is the best and most customizable of the image search engines available. Definitely the best choice here. You can select multiple images, sort and download. You also get more detailed information about the kind of file through an at-a-glance interface. Check out the details page for a list of all the great features. *one note: this interface only works with the firefox web browser.

pixsy searches not just images but video too, in a nice simple interface. You can also search for files, music, as well as a range of categories such as travel, entertainment, and stock photos.

ditto is another search engine that is similar to Google Image Search, but they use different search algorithms and directories to do so – so you can different results.

Laser Pointer Politeness

Many people use a pointer in presentations, either to change slides (which is okay) or to point at the slides with the laser (which is not okay). Being able to change slides without being close to the computer or mouse allows the presenter to move around the room – the presenter is freer to interact with the audience. But the laser pointer, when used the way most people use it, can be extremely distracting and irritate the audience.

Here are some tips:

• Don’t use the laser unless you absolutely have to – Well designed slides combined with a well organized commentary should mean it is unnecessary to use a laser to point.
• Never underline text and read it to the audience at the same time – The audience will feel like their elementary school teacher is reading to them. This is very rude.
• Put the pointer in your weak hand (the hand you don’t write with or gesture with the least) – This will be the least distracting to the audience.
• Don’t point to change slides – A pointer does not work like your TV remote. It uses a radio transmitter/receiver, rather than an infrared transmitter/receiver. This means that you don’t need to point it at anything in order to change the slide

Data Commentary: Hans Rosling at TED 2006

I’ve talked about Hans Rosling in class a number of times. Here is a link to his well-known presentation at TED 2006. The presentation combines statistics and his rich experience and engaging personality to challenge and change our preconceptions about the state of the world.

It is a good example for academic presenters because it shows us that passion and energy are powerful presenting tools. I like how he interacts with the data in such a physical way – it is very engaging.

Some notes:

• Gapminder: the software used to create the statistic animations; it is primarily linked to world health and population statistics; if you visit the website you can create your own ‘gapcasts’ through accessing UN and other international databases.
• TED: an international conference bringing together some great speakers from around the world; videos of their presentations are made available online for free viewing and download; definitely a valuable resource; Hans Rosling’s presentation is also available.

Intensive Presentation Skills Program

Over the past six weeks I have been involved in a number of Intensive English Programs for various departments at the university. Each program is organized around a set of skills: writing, debating, conversation, and presentation skills. On the last day of each two week program we organize a mock conference where teams of students present to the whole group.

This particular activity has been rewarding for both me and the students and so I thought I would share some of what we do and how we do it.

Basically, the students are required to work in teams of 3 or 4 to produce a 10-12 minute presentation on a topic of their choice.  The only requirements are that topic must fit into some kind of academic in nature, and that it must fit a problem-solution format (situation, problem, solution, evaluation).  I’ve chosen this format because it seems to give them the most flexibility in topic choice and is also a common format in presenting.

Most of the intensive programs follow a 10 day schedule:
Day 1 – Introduction: Students are introduced to each other and the class. We discuss what it means to be an academic; since the majority of students are incoming freshmen they still consider themselves just students. At the end of the class students are informed about the mock conference and asked to think of three topics they would be interested in discussing and presenting.

Day 2 – Selecting topics and teams: At the beginning of class, each student shares their three ideas with the group. The ideas are recorded on the whiteboard by the teacher. Next, students are told they must form a group and select a topic. I encourage them to form groups around topics as these kinds of groups tend to be more motivated. Students mingle and discuss with each other. They find that they must negotiate, compromise, and convince others of their ideas. Once a group has formed, their next step is to go from their general idea to something more specific.

Day 3 – Finding the niche: In this step, students work to determine the specific angle of their presentation, their purpose, and their reason for giving the presentation. This is also the time when we discuss the audience and their role in the presentation. Usually, by the end of the 70 minute period most groups are well on their way to well-defined topic and have developed a workable outline for their presentation.

Day 4 – Testing your ideas on the audience: Up to this point, the other groups are not intimately aware of the ideas of the other groups in the class. In this class the students break into new groups and sell their topic to the other groups. Through this process they can troubleshoot any misunderstandings about content and get a better idea of what their audience needs and wants. We also do an activity where students have one minute to describe their topic to a partner. They do this repeatedly with different partners. By the fourth or fifth partner they have developed a concise and organized description of their topic. This activity is to reinforce the idea that repetition and practice, not a written speech, are the keys to being able to present well.

Day 5 – Tutorials: During this class I usually meet with each group for 15 to 20 minutes to discuss their presentation and assist them with any problem solving.

Day 6 and 7 – First trial run: Each group is assigned a partner group to critique. Two groups present each day. After the presentations, the partner groups get together to discuss and critique each other’s presentation.\

Day 8 – Making it Visual: This class focuses on body language and visual aids. We talk about some of the common mistakes made in these areas, as well as some of the conventions that may be followed in their given field of research. We also spend some time examining the representation of data and how data can be (inadvertently) distorted.

Day 9 – Final trials: each group presents their presentation to the class for a final critique and discussion.

Day 10 – Mock Conference: Generally the conference is organized into two concurrent sessions with 8 to 12 presentations in each session. Presenters are not in any particular order. Each 12 minute presentation is followed by 3-5 minutes Q&A. The instructors-judges also act as moderators and time-keepers. Following the conclusion of the session, the students are given a ballot for the Audience Choice award for best presentation. The judges also select a best presentation for each session. Prizes and certificates for these are awarded at the closing ceremony.

Through this experience the students gain an understanding of the process of presenting, as well as the awareness that presenting well requires more than just a well-written script and perfect English. 

Visual Aid Styleguide

This Visual Aid styleguide, 2.0 addresses many of the issues that a presenter faces when designing their presentation materials. It covers the use of text, bullet points, and common punctuation errors.

• Text
  • What kinds of fonts to use in presentation materials
  • The use of text formatting such as bold, italics, text size, etc.
• Bullet Points
  • Strategies and styles to use in order to communicate well
• Punctuation
  • examples of Do’s and Don’ts

Over the past few months I have been collecting and analyzing some of the errors that I see in presentations. I’ve put together this style guide to help presenters ensure that their presentation is professional in appearance and accurate in content.

There are plans to expand on this guide, but for now, these three areas are covered. Check back in a month for an expanded version

Adobe Kuler, Color Picker

This has got to be the best color-picker available ( http://kuler.adobe.com/ )on the internet. It is much more flexible than any other i have found, and by far the easiest to use.

Select the color relationships you want and drag the sliders to adjust the colors and tones. The corresponding tones and are adjusted automatically for you. At the bottom of the screen is you can see the values in different color spaces.

For presenters using PowerPoint, the RGB values will be the most useful. Just copy these RBG values into the the PowerPoint color-picker.

Using color: part 1

Theoretical and Practical approaches

There are no rules in choosing a color, partly because it is such a subjective thing, but there are some guidelines that can help the presenter make appropriate choices.

There are a variety of physiological and cultural factors that need to be taken into account when considering color. But underlying all this theory is the idea that color has meaning. When designing visual aids, the presenter can use the meaning, connotations and signifiers that various colors have, to create layers of meaning. Tufte talks about this a lot in his books). When a visual contains layers of meaning, it becomes information rich, but not crowded or cluttered; relationships between components or data points are easy to recognize and comprehend. Two good examples of meaning contained in layers are shown below.

Well designed maps for instance, depend on color to convey elevation, points, roads, contour lines, etc. When we think about it, a contour map like the one below contains a lot of information; yet the use of colour helps to organize this information and convey the relationships between data points.

When designing visual aids, presenters need to also be aware that they can create layers of meaning. A well designed set of presentation visual aids can draw their coherence from the effective use of colors. In a largely text-based slide this can be as simple as the headings being one colour and details or minor points being another. When used consistently, the audience quickly and easily starts to see the connection between points and recognizes the structure of the content. The slide below uses color to identify the hierarchy of ideas and separate headings from definitions.

Likewise, the slide below uses color to demarcate different functions within the text. In this example, the students were analyzing the components of the CARS model in a writing class. We looked at a variety of examples, but each example used the same colour identifiers to examine the organization of the text.

In a more visual or pictorial slide, colour can be used to effectively demarcate conceptual boundaries. For example, labels in one color and objects in another. Likewise, color can be used to highlight a visual element (such as using a colour overlay to indicate a key component in a photograph):

 

A Practical Approach to using colour in presentations

Taking advantage of Preattentive Processing in your visual aids

The article Data Presentation: Tapping the power of visual perception, by Stephen Few, deals with the question “why do some people respond well to some forms of data representation and not others” This is definitely worth reading for anyone involved in representing data in a visual medium. The article discusses such topics as the role and limitations of memory in our interpretation of charts and data and the fundamental attributes of sight and how these are related to attentive and pre-attentive processing.

Attentive and pre-attentive processing were new terms for me, but they put a name to some ideas that I have had in the past and which are also closely related to concepts of ‘layered meaning.’

The authors illustrate the difference between attentive and preattentive processing through the use of two illustrations.

figure 1

figure 2

In Figure 2, discerning how many times the number ‘5’ appears is relatively easy because it has been distinguished by colour – a preattentive attribute that differentiates it from other numbers. In contrast, discerning the frequency in Example 1 is much more difficult because the brain must work harder to discern the individual shapes (the difference between a ‘3’ and a ‘5’, for example).

For presenters and infographic designers, this is an important concept to keep in mind, and further underlines the importance of using preattentive attributes (color, orientation, size, line width, etc.) to draw attention to the key ideas and data points (see discussion on tables). 

Sources:

• The full text of the article is here and here in pdf.
• A detailed description of preattentive visual attributes is at the bottom of the second page.

 

Thesis and Dissertation Abstract Writing Workshop links

Much of what is available on the internet regarding thesis abstracts is quite sparse and not really focused towards the ESL student. However, there are a few links that are useful:

• University of Toronto Writing Center: a good description of writing an abstract for the beginner.
• The Efficient Academic: this blog has a great collection of resources, specifically geared towards the science researcher. While there is nothing specifically related to writing a thesis/dissertation abstract, there is a wide variety of links to articles about academic writing – definitely worth a look
• Scientific Writing: A very detailed collection of links to several aspects of scientific writing, including thesis and dissertation writing.

Thesis and Dissertation Abstract Writing Workshop for Natural Science and Engineering students (05.09)

Workshop Date: May 9th, from 3:00pm to 6:00pm

Location: rm 422, 4th floor of the Language Education Institute (LEI, bldg 137), Seoul National University

Registration: You must register for this workshop. This can be done through the LEI website.

This workshop will examine the structure of the thesis/dissertation abstract. This particular workshop will focus exclusively on writing thesis/dissertation abstracts in the natural sciences and engineering fields.

Some of the specific skills to be covered include:

• Strong and Weak abstracts: What features make make some abstracts better than others
• Strategies for writing abstracts: including key words, interestingness and entering into abstract databases
• Structure of abstracts (Based on the CARS model, by Swales and Feake): We will look at how an abstract can be fitted to this model, and some of the related strategies that a writer needs to use in order to draw attention to their work
• Academic Language skills: We will look at some basic academic writing skills that ESL writers may need to consider when writing a dissertation abstract.

I look forward to seeing some of you there at the workshop.