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Introducing podcasting (slidecast) January 20, 2010

Posted by Steve Boneham in : podcasting, HowTo, video, Training , add a comment

This is a slidecast produced for participants in an online event on podcasting for JISC RSC-NW. The idea is to give them the opportunity to come up with ideas for what formats and approaches would work for their podcast before the event, so that the time online can focus on the practicalities of producing a podcast. Following that, we hope they’ll put this into practice to produce and publish a podcast to encourage review and discussion with others.

Is anyone remotely interested? October 7, 2009

Posted by Steve Boneham in : HowTo, presentation, Training, conferences , 6comments

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I’ve been asked to present a ‘webinar’ on the web2practice project for JISC RSC Eastern in December and have been thinking about how best to present to a remote audience. As someone who’s often in the remote audience for events, I’m aware of how difficult it can be to engage and maintain people’s interest. So, as this will be my first attempt to present to a purely remote audience, I’m hoping for some advice from those who give and receive presentations.

As I commented in a post on Powerpoint on UK web focus, I think engagement is the key issue for a remote audience. Looking at engagement stats for videos of some of my presentations, many more people hit stop within 5mins than have ever walked out of a live presentation (although maybe they’re just too polite!) .

So, how do I keep remote participants interested?

Here’s a rough outline of how I plan to approach this:

Anything else you’d recommend?

ALT-C. Be there or be… anywhere September 18, 2009

Posted by Steve Boneham in : social media, conferences , 1 comment so far

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Despite not making it to ALT-C this year, I still felt more involved than I have at some events that I actually attended thanks to the formal and informal amplifcation of the event. These are my notes on the pros and cons of being a remote participant in a tech-enhanced conference.

In an attempt to give the live sessions my full attention, as I would at the conference, I booked out time in my diary as being ‘at‘ ALT-C. However, there were still lots of ‘…but you’re not really there, are you?‘ interruptions (quick questions, phone calls…) that you avoid when you’re actually away. So my first lesson learned for next time is to get out of the office and watch somewhere away from these distractions.

I’ll confess I didn’t help myself here either by giving in to the temptation of checking the occassional email or getting on with my ‘real work’ that I would have felt guilty about doing in a live audience. I consider myself to have a reasonable attention span, so was disapppointed by my lack of discipline online. I think this, like the last point, highlights the need to change peoples perception of what being ‘at an online conference’ means - including my own.

The onscreen experience of the live sessions was pretty good - certainly better than I’ve had from the back of some conferences. Using Elluminate for this was perhaps a case of sledgehammer to crack a nut, but it worked once you’d jumped through the hoops. Just as useful though was the informal streaming from participants, like that of the VLE is dead debate, by James Clay. This was a far simpler approach, but arguably a better experience. I’ve been skeptical about the quality of this approach, but in the right circumstances and with a bit of thought, it can be very effective.

As always, Twitter enabled commentary from the live audience and those watching remotely, giving an insight into their thoughts. The conference #hastag was very active, as shown by Brian Kelly’s analysis. A downside of this was that it provoked the worst influx of trending topic spam I’ve seen, but I think this remains a price worth paying to keep the discussion public.

However, for me, the real difference was not what happenend at the conference, but what happened next. The reflection and discussion taking place after the event have in some ways been of more value than the conference itself. Reading blogs posts from different viewpoints, seeing what I thought to be minor details be picked up and expanded into detailed arguments, commenting and discussing the issues, has all helped to consolidate my learning.

What this has also made me realise is that the value I place on the social web for helping me feel part of the community is in part an inditement of the fact that until recently I haven’t been - or at least, not part of the right community. With conferences and events being one way to achieve that, I think it’s clear I need to get out more!

Clay Shirky on the power of social media June 16, 2009

Posted by Steve Boneham in : Twitter, presentation, social media, conferences , add a comment

Interesting TED talk from Clay Shirky on how media has changed to social media and the impact of that on citizens, institutions and government.

Explaining emergent technologies (with PowerPoint) March 30, 2009

Posted by Steve Boneham in : HowTo, projects, design, presentation , add a comment

web2practiceicons

I’m working on a JISC project to produce guides to how emergent technologies like social media, RSS and wikis can enhance the practice of staff in research, teaching and administration. One output of this will be a series of icon-based videos explaining the key concepts of these technologies. Unable to find suitable icons in stock image sites, I started to make my own - with PowerPoint. This post is an attempt to justify that and retain some credibility!

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not claiming these icons (see sample above) are better than those you’ll find in stock image sites. Those sites are full of professional quality vector icons with stunning use of lighting, shadows and 3D. But that’s the problem. The more striking the design, the worse they look when you mix icons from different sets. You also need a relatively high level of graphic design skills to manipulate them.

In contrast, while PowerPoint is clearly not a graphics app, it has some decent built-in effects that can make even simple geometric shapes look respectable with just a few clicks. Also, for screencasts that are essentially narrated presentations, it made sense to work with them in a presentation tool, then convert to a web video format for delivery.

As PowerPoint is a tool that most people (in our target audience) are familar with, we hope that others might start to make their own resources with them so are looking to release the PowerPoints under a creative commons (non-commercial) licence.

If you’d be interested in using them, please add a comment to let us know.

Podcast: Introduction to Podcasting March 26, 2009

Posted by Steve Boneham in : podcasting, HowTo, social media, Training, JISC , add a comment

podcasting microphone

A brief introduction to podcasting and the training offered by Netskills recorded for JISC RSC-Eastern. It’s always painful to listen to yourself, but I hope it’s less painful for you!

Listen to more podcasts from JISC RSC Eastern

photo credit: gpl via stock.xchng