Random Quote
Hanging is too good for a man who makes puns; he should be drawn and quoted.
---- Fred Allen
I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask them where they're going and hook up with them later.
---- Mitch Hedberg
If the English language made any sense, a catastrophe would be an apostrophe with fur.
---- Doug Larson
Those who know nothing of foreign languages, knows nothing of their own.”
---- Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749 -1832)
Education's purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one.
---- Malcom Forbes
The least of learning is done in the classrooms
---- Thomas Merton
Books to the ceiling,
Books to the sky,
My pile of books is a mile high.
How I love them! How I need them!
I'll have a long beard by the time I read them.
---- Arnold Lobel
Man invented language to satisfy his deep need to complain.
---- Lily Tomlin
I never teach my pupils; I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn.
---- Albert Einstein
It is a paradoxical but profoundly true and important principle of life that the most likely way to reach a goal is to be aiming not at that goal itself but at some more ambitious goal beyond it.
---- Arnold Toynbee
Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence.
---- Robert Frost
Arguments over grammar and style are often as fierce as those over IBM versus Mac, and as fruitless as Coke versus Pepsi and boxers versus briefs.
---- Jack Lynch
Good teaching is one-fourth preparation and three-fourths theater.
---- Gail Godwin
The important thing is not to stop questioning.
---- Albert Einstein
Don't knock the weather. If it didn't change once in a while, nine out of ten people couldn't start a conversation.
---- Kin Hubbard
Tact is the knack of making a point without making an enemy.
---- Isaac Newton
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
---- Sheik Abd-al-Kadir
As soon as I buy the moose head, I have to go pick up some KY jelly.
---- Mary Roninette Kowal
To have another language is to possess a second soul.
---- Charlemagne
Always be wary of any helpful item that weighs less than its operating manual.
---- Terry Pratchett
Any man whose errors take ten years to correct is quite a man.
---- J. Robert Oppenheimer
Technology will not replace teachers...teachers who use technology will
probably replace teachers who do not.
---- Ray Clifford
Man invented language to satisfy his deep need to complain.
---- Lily Tomlin
it's probably not a good idea to underestimate my ability to make an ass out of myself—just when I seem to have it under control, I'll turn around and surprise you.
---- Tenser said the Tensor
Just because your voice reaches halfway around the world doesn't mean you are wiser than when it reached only to the end of the bar.
---- Edward R. Murrow
Presentations Textbooks
The past couple of semesters my university has switched our program focus from 4 skills to presentation skills. In this time I’ve used a couple of textbooks aimed at teaching presentation skills to non-native speakers. While no textbook is perfect I’ve noticed that none of the books I’ve looked at teach anything about using note cards when presenting. This seems to me to be a glaring omission.
Using note cards (or the notes field in PowerPoint) is essential to giving an effective presentation especially for non-native speakers. When they don’t do this one of two things happens. First they will bring a script and just read from it, despite being told not to read. Second they’ll memorize the entire speech, but then forget it and spend their time looking at the ceiling while trying to remember.
I have prepared a couple of lessons around the principles including a sample presentation and note cards for students too look at and will be testing them out this coming week. But really I fail to see why this is not included in commercial textbooks. Students can have the best organization, transitions and visuals, but if do not use note cards they will end up having no body language or eye contact due to the negative effects of reading and memorization. The result is a boring, forgetful and wasted presentation.
I don’t teach, nor allow, PowerPoint with my lower level students but with intermediate and above I do teach it. It’s more about teaching them what not to do – i.e. flashy transitions, multiple fonts, multiple styles, poor contrast etcetera. One thing that every presenter should be using is presenter view. This allows you to see the current slide, upcoming slides and the notes field all on one space – on your laptop screen while on the projector the audience sees the regular presentation view.
here is a screenshot (click for full size):
Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Saturday Oct 31, 2009 at 10:02 AM
Teaching | teaching_application |
kwandongbrian wrote 24 words on Saturday Oct 31, 2009 at 10:41 AM
I’ve given a few presentations myself where I needed to click on to the next slide, then back so I remembered what was next.
Sean. wrote 61 words on Saturday Oct 31, 2009 at 10:46 AM
Brian - presenter view - you should be using that provided your equipment lets you. In all of my classrooms except one I do. It’s a life saver as it allows you to see the next slide as well as any progression on the current slide and also to see the notes field.
Will update the post with a screenshot shortly.
kwandongbrian wrote 92 words on Sunday Nov 1, 2009 at 08:14 AM
First, I hope your problems - mentioned on your other blog - are solvable, and that, easily.
I’ve connected my laptop to a monitor and had both screens show the same thing. A computer guy at a school I was working at adjusted the settings so that the two screen worked sort of as one big screen - I would push things to the right and they would appear on the other screen. I can’t figure out how to do that with my Korean OS. Is that what you are describing above?
Sean. wrote 55 words on Sunday Nov 1, 2009 at 08:17 AM
Brian,
yeah that’s what you need to do. Right click on your desktop and choose display settings - move around the tabs on that menu and you should be able to figure it out. Try it on an English computer first and then remember the steps for when you use your Korean o/s. good luck.