With so many different presentation tools, choosing the most effective one to meet your purpose can be difficult. Furthermore, the traditional slide presentation has become the norm and often just enables a boring teacher or speaker because of the presenter not utilizing the full capabilities of slide presentation applications or simply providing spoken material word-for-word in the slide presentation. In order to not overwhelm an audience with too much content and to focus on the most relevant information, interactive posters have become an effective presentation tool in many situations.
As a teacher, I have recognized the struggle to capture the attention of the younger generation for significant amounts of time. Personally, I have never utilized PowerPoint presentations very often, if ever, for providing instruction and course content. I also have not frequently assigned students projects to be completed or visually enhanced through PowerPoint presentations due to their common use by so many teachers. The interactive poster provides a less common and a more concise way of presenting information to students and for students to create products that assist in presenting constructed and/or researched material.
In the above example of an interactive poster, I have included some different online examples and my own student examples from a creative writing nonfiction project. Hicks (2013) highlights several characteristics of effective presentations that could also apply to interactive posters, such as simplicity, unpredictability, relevancy, credibility, and storytelling. These examples included above are not perfect exemplars, but they all display some of these characteristics. The Civil War poster is very complex, but it does tell an unpredictable story with credible and relevant resources that engage the audience much more than a slide presentation. The other three examples may need improvement in flow from one component to another or maybe more concise bits of text, but they provide relevant and credible examples through different forms of media in a concise format in relation to the traditional slide presentation.
I truly believe with the shift to each viewer having his or her own device that the slide presentation will be replaced with interactive posters and similar media for visually enhancing presented material. Buttery (2008) notes that students who are easily distracted have difficulty completing tasks and focusing for long periods of time. However, interactive posters and similar media allow students with these common challenges to engage in meaningful material in a manner that is much less monotonous as many slide presentations. The concise format allows for the viewer to access the different components of the presentation more easily and in a more engaging manner than with clicking through numerous slides.
References
Hicks, T. (2013). Crafting digital writing: Composing texts across media and genres. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
Buttery, T. J. (2008). Understanding and working with Attention Deficit Disorder students. Southeastern Regional Association of Teacher Educators Journal, 18(1), 7-15.
Buttery, T. J. (2008). Understanding and working with Attention Deficit Disorder students. Southeastern Regional Association of Teacher Educators Journal, 18(1), 7-15.
Oluchi ElechiOctober 13, 2016 at 6:25 PM
ReplyDeleteWow! that is awesome, the fact that everyone of the students are fully engaged in the presentation, make it easier to keep them involve in the presentation. meanwhile, the ultimate idea of an author during presentation is to engage his/her audience and keep them motivated and engaged throughout the presentation, and from the description of your interactive poster, I believe it will be a great choice of presentation for all level of students. Meanwhile, I strongly believe that a lot of presentation media are good and effective for what they are made to present, but its success depends on the way you use it, (appropriately or inappropriately).
Cranford, J. (2016) Edutopia What Works in Education: http://www.edutopia.org/blog/8-tips-classroom-presentation-jason-cranford-teague