Recently in class we were asked to make an on-line presentation on a pre-approved topic of our choice. This presentation was to use audio which was edited using a sound editing program. At first I was not sure about how I was to use the audio files, whether they were to be used for the whole presentation, or just parts of the presentation. I also was not sure if the files needed to be of me speaking or whether they could be other types of sound clips. I decided that I was supposed to present using my own voice speaking and explaining the slides.
I decided to use the web presenting tool, called Prezi. Prezi is a a free flowing type of presenting tool, which starts out as a blank page. You can post text and other files all over the page and create frames around the information and/or files. Prezi is vector based, so you are able to zoom in and create very small text or zoom out and create very big text. Your frames will fill the screen, but you may set your frames to be very small or very big. It is a bit hard to explain, it is best for those interested to investigate the presenting tool itself. Prezi is an exciting alternative to a typical slide show.
I had never used Prezi before, but had seen presentations which included audio files within Prezi. I assumed that I could use Prezi and add audio files. It turns out this was a bad assumption. In order to include audio into Prezi, audio files need to be formatted into a video type file, which takes formatting software which I do not have. I decided it was not worth my effort in this case to go through the trouble of finding software and learning to use it in order to convert my edited sound clip into a different type of file. I decided to add in a sound cue into my audio which would indicate that the viewer needed to change slides. The viewer of the presentation would need to open the presentation in an on-line browser, and the sound file in a separate program.
Personally I found it challenging to create audio for the presentation. I wanted to make the presentation interesting, because during a normal presentation I rely heavily on interacting with my audience. I also Found it difficult due to decide how much information to include in each slide. Normally I put very minimal information into my slides in a presentation. I explain the bullet points as the slide show progresses. I am aware that I could do the same in this presentation, however I opted to put almost all of my information spoken into my slides. I felt that the viewer may retain more if all of the information was included (and being at a computer allows for less distraction than a classroom, which may focus the viewer more on the words on the screen compared to a class presentation). In hindsight I do not know if this was the best choice. I am still not sure.
My presentation was fairly long and I found creating audio was tedious. It is tough to get the right dynamics when using audio editing software. When cutting out clips and and clips I found that it hard to get your dynamics right all of the time, in order to make the audio sounding smooth.
All in all I found this project fairly labor intensive. Because of the recording and editing of the audio it could get frustrating. I am sure that my presentation was not all that exciting. In the future I would probably try to make informative on-line presentations short, or cut into segments, in order to keep the viewers attention. It was a good exercise for me.
No comments:
Post a Comment