Future Technology in Presentations

We live in a world where technology makes leaps and bounds overnight. We are building faster and smarter electronics every day. What seemed impossible five years ago is commonplace today. As we continue to integrate our gadgets, I believe the future will look like your modern Sci-Fi movie with fully automated homes, vehicles, and personal devices. So why should our presentations lack technological advances? I believe that we will be putting the overhead projector out to the trash heap, no more PowerPoint presentations. That in the near future we will have presentations that are intuitive that move, and guide the audience through the seminar. Audience members will bring their tablets or smartphones and once the presentation starts content will be shared on their device. Presenters will not need to be in the room, but have their voice broadcasted to their devices. Images will be associated with more content that an audience member can save and read later. Questions will be sent to the presenter and received instantly. Replies will be sent back to audience member as well as being collected for a frequently asked question portion of the presentation. Presentations will be saved on smart devices to be restreamed from the comfort of your own home, in the car on a long commute, or while sitting at the park with your kids. The ability to copy snippets of the presentation and send to colleagues for further review. Play that last section back, ask the presenter to clarify his definition of this new system. Discuses with other audience members on what they gained from this presentation. If you need to pause the presentation and expand on a topic, you are unfamiliar with to better understand the overall content you are able to. Without disturbing other members of the audience. Wait we can do all of this with our presentations now, but many companies lack the desire or knowledge to bring their presentations into present day technology. Using tools like live streaming presentations, coupled with flash websites that are aligned with presentations. Adding live chats and forums can create all of those scenarios. How do you want your message received? Do you have the passion to make this a multilevel presentation? With a bit of research you can bring your presentation into the New Age of technology.

Social Media in Education

Social media and education can make strange bedfellows. On one side of the coin, teachers in traditional classrooms struggle to get students to focus on schoolwork and stay off social media. Students are sharing homework answers on social media sites, and the increase of plagiarism in the last decade is outstanding. According to "Is Technology Responsible For The Increase In College Plagiarism?" (n.d.), "Unfortunately, for college students, the temptation to use technology for shortcuts is very high. Not only is it easy to plagiarize by simply cutting and pasting, but it is also easy to purchase fully written papers, reports, even PhD dissertations. On many college campuses, the internet has changed from a tool for gathering information to one for stealing & buying information. “(para. 7). Now the other side of the coin, when teachers can use social media to help their students. When teachers are able to reach a student may it be on the basketball court, during a after school art program or through social media both parties benefit. At my former high school, one math teacher has his own Facebook page where he posts homework assignments and things that he taught that day in class. This way, when kids are checking their feeds, homework assignments and reminders will inevitably show up on the screen. This is a good way to get students attention and remind them about upcoming tests or homework. I think many educators could take a page from his book. Staying relevant with students and connecting with them to help them achieve educational milestones are always the desired outcome. When educators reach out and connect with students on their level, they will make an impact. As a student of University of Phoenix, I am on my third years for my Bachelor’s degree. I have taken many classes and only on one occasion did a teacher instant message me. She was asking me how the week was going and if I had any questions about the assignment. I was floored, blown away, and I worked that much harder in her class. I felt like she cared more than the others did. It was a two-minute conversation but it changed my perspective for that class instantly. If more teachers took this stance, think of the progress that could be made with students that are struggling.

References

Is Technology Responsible for the Increase in College Plagiarism?. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://en.writecheck.com/blog/2011/10/04/is-technology-responsible-for-the-increase-in-college-plagiarism

Social Media in Presentations

Social media is not just for sharing cat videos anymore. Businesses are taking to social media for advertising, connecting to customers and branding their company. Why shouldn’t educators and speakers use social media to help expand their presentation skills? Let us walk through some simple steps to connect social media to your presentation. First, we need to market your presentation beforehand and find out target audience. A simple way to achieve this is to create a Facebook event listing the time date, and summary of your presentation. Invite people that are going to actually be interested. No one likes to be spammed for every event under the sun. Keep it relevant and local. Secondly, we need to connect to our audience. Now during the presentation encourage the audience to ask live questions on the Facebook event page. Everyone invited will see this. So even individuals that were unable to attend can still gain information. Creating this open dialogue can enrich your presentation, but it is an extra ball to juggle. Ask a colleague to monitor the feeds during your presentation. Let them know what type of feedback they should pass on to you. Assign a second colleague to answer questions and add links to additional resources. Now to make your presentation trend and keep feeds rolling. You can achieve this by creating an additional hashtag to isolate it. This can clarify which direction information flows between the presenter and audience. Simple site software’s can create polls that can be dropped into the even or twitter conversation asking audience members to share their opinion. Now walking off the stage is no longer the end of your work. There is still time to connect to your audience, to Tweet relevant quotes from your speech so that again people can engage and share your message. To clarify points that may have accidentally gotten muddled through the course of the presentation. This is where we receive criticism and learn how to modify our presentation for future audiences. All feedback is important when looking at the larger scale. Anyone can use these simple steps to add social media to their future presentations. Let us get our message out and change the world one presentation at a time.