An effective website must be useful, meaningful, and accessible to its intended audience. One of the bigger problems with creating an effective website is establishing exactly "who" that intended audience is. The website that an elementary school student finds as perfect will not be perfect for graduate students or professionals, and I believe too many sites attempt to be all things for all people.
Content an style are the two elements that make for an effective presentation on the web. The content needs to be a narrow enough focus that it delivers the intended message clearly, without being diluted. Yet the site must provide access to many more general offshoots of the topic if the audience might be interested. This is where the links need to be well organized, yet not made prominent. And that is where style comes into play.
Early on in the life of the web, it seemed that many sites just wanted to grab your attention, and then not do anything with it. It seems every web element that could blink, flash, spin, beep, or dazzle was employed on many sites just to show the world, "look what I can do!" (The fish on my own blog are a good example of that. Guilty.) Now it seems web designers have joined up with the communications professionals and have started putting together more effective, sleek packages that efficiently deliver the intended message to the intended audience, without unneccessary bells and whistles.
I'm planning on using Dreamweaver to develop my website for the Bridge activity. I've had a little experience using it in the past, find that it is fairly intuitive for me, and hope that having access to it at work will give me some more options time-wise. It is also easier for me to design a page when I start with an existing framework-- like the many online web design resources offer templates. I believe appropriate images make a page more visually engaging to the audience, and I'll need to incorporate tables and charts from the Excel files. It would seem silly to create a website to display all the data I hope to and NOT link to MyMCPS, the Outdoor Ed website, and other Outdoor and Environmental Education websites, so I'll provide links to those as well.
I'm currently debating about sound and video. They may not be neccessary, and may actually distract from my message as I was mentioning above. If I can find or generate appropriate files, I may use them, but am currently leaning against it for the Bridge activity.
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Effective Presentations
I believe one of the most effective presentation tools we have currently in MCPS is the Microsoft PowerPoint presentation, .ppt. It was the industry standard at one time, and some would say it still is, although it is now somewhat dated. That is its primary drawback.
There are now newer software tools that allow a tremendous amount of interaction between the audience and the presenter, between other audience members, and between all parties and the software itself. These tools make for a much more dynamic presentation, and makes the presentation itself more of a 'collaboration'. Powerpoint, by itself, cannot handle these sorts of interactions.
On the plus side, everyone knows how to use Powerpoint and it is still one of the more intuitive -to -use pieces of software around. From an administrators standpoint, if I'm hoping that all my staff will use presentation software, then this product will be a known entity for them. Fewer bugs, fewer last minute crashes, and more compatibility with the other software products my staff is accustomed to using. Powerpoint is much more like the "piece of chalk" when it comes to integration than the new products.
It will also be easier for the students to use as well. Again, as an administrator, from the standards, I'd want my students to have equal access to any software for presentations. It will take a few more steps to get my kids access to the newer tools, but my labs, desktops, homes will have access to Powerpoint.
And let's not forget that Powerpoint has all the features necessary for a good presentation. It has great transitions, the ability to embed many formats, easy to use features, and still more bells and whistles than most people need for short presentations where one person is speaking before an audience.
In short, oldie but a goodie.
There are now newer software tools that allow a tremendous amount of interaction between the audience and the presenter, between other audience members, and between all parties and the software itself. These tools make for a much more dynamic presentation, and makes the presentation itself more of a 'collaboration'. Powerpoint, by itself, cannot handle these sorts of interactions.
On the plus side, everyone knows how to use Powerpoint and it is still one of the more intuitive -to -use pieces of software around. From an administrators standpoint, if I'm hoping that all my staff will use presentation software, then this product will be a known entity for them. Fewer bugs, fewer last minute crashes, and more compatibility with the other software products my staff is accustomed to using. Powerpoint is much more like the "piece of chalk" when it comes to integration than the new products.
It will also be easier for the students to use as well. Again, as an administrator, from the standards, I'd want my students to have equal access to any software for presentations. It will take a few more steps to get my kids access to the newer tools, but my labs, desktops, homes will have access to Powerpoint.
And let's not forget that Powerpoint has all the features necessary for a good presentation. It has great transitions, the ability to embed many formats, easy to use features, and still more bells and whistles than most people need for short presentations where one person is speaking before an audience.
In short, oldie but a goodie.
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