What to do when your presentation time is cut short?

Last night during my class students were to present an assignment to the class. Each group had 10-20 minutes to present. Since I was not really paying attention to the time per se for this assignment (I know my bad), I did not stop the first two groups from going 30 then 40 minutes. After the 2nd group had finished I realized that we had just over an hour for 4 groups to present. This meant each remaining group would have roughly 15 minutes, which should be ok considering last week they each thought 10 minutes was too much and were nervous about making that time. So here is what I observed during that hour: The first two groups who had a minimum of 15 minutes each presented their normal presentation. I gave them a 3 minute and 1 minute warning and then had to stop them in the middle of their presentations. The 2nd two groups sped up their presentations cutting out some things but making sure to cover all of the points. So..

Which strategy was more effective? What should you do as a presenter in this situation?

Well first of all, when you get cut short at the last minute, which does happen at conferences and many professional presentations, make sure you adjust. Dont just stop in the middle of your presentation. Make sure you hit all of your major take home points. Cut out things that might have taken a little longer than normal, like viewing a video or external link. Let your audience know that they can view it after the presentation and offer the link. When you hear that 5 minute or 1 minute warning, wrap up. Give everyone your take home points, don’t just continue only to be stopped. When you are stopped in the middle of an idea the audience will remember you were stopped, that is what will stand out.

I hope that helps. Just an example from earlier this year, during my students presentation at the AECT conference for the Pacific Corp competition, they found out at the last minute that they had 15 minutes to present instead of 20. So this does happen and happens quite often. Needless to say they did cut their presentation and still ended up winning the competition!

Adobe Suite 6 rumored to be coming spring or summer 12

According to the rumors, the latest versions of Flash, Photoshop, Dreamweaver, and the rest of the Adobe suite will be coming this summer. Here are a few pieces from an interview with the CEO of Adobe:

“Question

And with respect to the CS5 mid-cycle release, is that going to impact the timing of CS6?

Adobe CEO

Well, I think the way you can look at that is the real goals for the mid-cycle release are to continue to enhance the functionality

And then you can expect another release in 2012.

Question

So then just to confirm, you said the next milestone release after the mid-cycle release will be in 2012. Is that correct?

Adobe CEO

That’s correct.”

 

Is the data plan for your cell phone really unlimited?

Well this small case is ‘huge’ in my opinion. How many of you have unlimited data plans from your cell phone company? Although those with new plans in the last year or so had to buy a certain amount of GBs, many who have had data plans for years were grandfathered into unlimited plans. I have an unlimited plan. However, what happens when the user starts using over 2GB of transfer data? They get throttled. ATT and Verizon have said that around 5% of their users use over 2GB of data each month (I use around 400mb on average) and once they reach that level they decrease the speed at which that user can make those transfers, thus limiting what they can download. In the first court case on this issue, a man challenged Att claiming that after 2GB his data was throttled even though his plan is unlimited. He won, the small court judge agreed with him and Att paid him $935.

Here is link to an article on the case

Now why is this so important?

– Well for one, as we teach online, users may need to view videos and other data heavy applications which will use a lot of data. So we do need to watch data.

– Two – We know that courts do agree. Even though this was settled, cases like this may work their way up to the supreme court so its important to take note.

– Three – Internet companies have been doing this with high speed internet for years so maybe its time they get challenged as well.

Google changing the way you search: Semantic searching coming soon…

Google will be changing the way you search soon. Instead of just searching for a term and coming up list of that term, Google’s new algorithm will look at more than just keywords as it does now. It will look at relationships. Thus it should become a better engine, helping us find what we are really looking for. For those that do not know, semantic searching has been discussed for a number of years but has yet to really be done well so we will see how Google handles it.

Here are a few articles on the topic:

Engadget

dailymail

wall street journal

What do college professors do over spring break?

Being that it’s my 3rd year as a college professor I thought I now have enough experience to speak about what ‘we’ do over spring break:) While my students are off on some adventure – some going to places like Cancun to party, some going on educational trips to places like Haiti, and others just simply staying home I am actually sitting at home, in my usual position – on the computer doing work. I have been working mostly on ‘playing catchup’. During the semester there are lots of administrative tasks that get thrown at you that you just never have time for. Normally I work around 50-60 hrs per week during the semester and never have extra time to do many things required of me, so break is when I catch up. Once I am done with those tasks I next try to catch up on my grading. I plan to spend the majority of today grading assignments in two courses that I teach. Once I finish grading, then its off to research. I am working on a paper that I maybe have a few hours for each week. Then I get to spend tomorrow prepping my courses for next week. I spend a good 3-4 hours per hour I teach in prep so it will take all day to prep 1-2 courses. That is my spring break. Sure I do not have to teach this week or go into the office but my work never ends!

Happy Pi Day!

It’s Pi Day!

Pi, Greek letter (π), is the symbol for the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. Pi Day is celebrated by math enthusiasts around the world on March 14th. Pi = 3.1415926535…

Learn more about Pi day

Gearing up for PETE&C 2012

Havent posted this week because I will be away next week so I have been trying to get ahead in my work. I will be at the PETE&C conference next week. I will post some updates/pics from the conference. I will be presenting on the use of Gamemaker as a classroom tool.

Here is a link to the conference: http://www.peteandc.org/