10 Signs of Death by PowerPoint

Original Image Souce http://bit.ly/tsYz72

Not a definitive list by any means. You may wish to add to it.

1. Setting up your presentation with your audience in the room and the projector on.
2. Too much text on a slide or the text is too small.
3. Reading directly from the slide and facing away from you audience as you do it.
4. Over use of transitions and effects with silly sound effects on text entry/exit.
5. Text all in Word Art
6. Graphs and charts with too much detail.
7. Images or pictures are inappropriate, unclear too small or none at all.
8. Asking someone else to move you onto the next slide.
9. Presentation does not have background and text theme.
10. Finishing the presentation with the black screen.

The quality and use of PowerPoint reflects on the quality of the presenter.

Once you become annoyed with the presentation you become annoyed with the presenter and you stop listening to the message, however good it may be.

Best 10 Excel Features That a Business Should Be Putting Into Use.

Those that only use Excel as a fancy desktop calculator are not in any way tapping into the power of the Spread Sheet.


AutoSum Feature

You would significantly increase your business efficiency and time savings if the following features were understood, learnt and put into use.



1. AutoSum features. There are other options available with this button: Average, Count Numbers, Max and Min.

2. Formatting cells for text, size, colour and border including conditional formatting.

Formatting Cells

3. Formatting cells for Number, Time, Date and Currency.

4. Using Fill (Pull Down) to replicate formulas.

5. Setting a Print Area.

6. Saving your spread sheet as a PDF file.

7. Using the $ sign to lock cell references for fixed and variable reference values (absolute references) e.g. C4*$A$1

8. Protecting Sheets to prevent unwanted editing or entry into certain cells.

Fill Feature

9. Producing a selection list using the List option in Data Validation.

10. Adding a Filter to columns.



Learning the above is not hard and would take relatively little time.

Does anyone feel there are other features that should be in this list?

Training for CMS Websites

Many web developers will now offer content manageable websites (CMS) so that clients are not reliant on the developer to make changes to text and pictures (even create new pages) when they are required. The advantage to the client is that changes can be made as and when required and being dependent on the developer finding the time to do it. This is necessary for a website today as it can become dynamic and responsive, not just a passive brochure site.  This has to be positive moves forward in users taking control of technology.

I see two issues that need to be addressed and resolved:

1.       Every web developer I speak to seems to offer a different CMS product be it: open source, bespoke or a commercial. I guess some solutions will be more suited to some business than overs but what are they key feature we should look for or be told about when deciding on the most appropriate CMS site for a business?

Is there not a training need for business leaders and owners so they are able to make informed and therefore appropriate choices when deciding on a CMS system for their business?

2.       What is the level of training is provided by the developer to ensure that the client has the capability to manage the site as intended? As with all potentially brilliant systems it will only be as good as the training its users receive. Many web developers and programmers I find are not natural trainers and therefore undertake a training role reluctantly. What training that does take place may just consist of an hour’s introduction and some help notes. This cannot be considered adequate for the client to have the understanding and capabilities to content manage their site successfully.

Poor training leaves the risk of changes to the site looking messy and amateurish. Spoiling the original site design. My experience is with Joomla and I know form this experience that a good number of hour’s training will be required, the amount also dependent on the level you wish the user to manage at.

I would love to hear other opinions.

ICT in Schools

Michael Gove today announced the ‘scraping’ of ICT in schools for it to be replaced with a IT curriculum rich in computer sciences. He is right to label current the ICT curriculum boring, after all that that is one of many reasons I gave up teaching. If I did not enjoy or see the relevance of what I was expected to teach, how could the kids I was teaching? I fear that what will replace ICT will prove to be as equally boring if not more, appeal to only a small majority of youngsters and disengage girls from the technology.

ICT has always been about having the understanding of and the capability to use technology available to us. Some of the problem in schools has been that:

a.     Teachers from other subjects have been used to fill in ‘timetable holes’ at Key Stage 3. Many of have been happy to be users of ICT within the comfort zone of their own subject areas but have struggled to deliver discreet ICT lessons. Support for these teachers has been inadequate. The bottom line being: if the teacher is not enjoying teaching the lesson how can you expect the children to?

b.      ICT has become just another subject to be studied, assessed and reported, so rigid confines have been set. To me IT has always been a material to be worked with hardware and software being the tools to work that material. ICT is about having the skills and capability to work this material; it is a practical discipline, you have to be creative with it and when allowed to treat it as such the results children achievements can be surprising, exciting for all and real leaning takes place. ICT is constantly changing but there has been little flexibility within National Strategy and examination specifications to enable exploration of new uses of this material.

My fear that if we move to scrap ICT, introducing computer science and coding there will be very little creativity. We will produce computer technicians and not computer users.

I have no problem with cross curricular ICT, I have been an advocate of that for over 20 years and it was a part of my role as an Advisory teacher to instigate whole school ICT auditing. It should continue and be strengthened.

The problem with cross-curricular delivery of ICT it that is a user of the technology;  e.g. a science teacher wants only to be able to use a spread sheet to model an experiment, they are not interested in teaching the skills and understanding needed to create the spread sheet. Discreet IT should deliver the capabilities that can be used by other subjects. It should also give a holistic picture of ICT and the nature of data; that data is able to move between applications and it your understanding of generic software applications enables you to derive the information you require from that data. It should also have the freedom to explore new technology and allow some creativity and fun. These ICT lessons should be taken by ICT specialists.

I am a great believer that if the teacher is having fun teaching and the children are having fun good learning takes place. If the teacher is not having fun but the kids are they are having fun at the teachers expense and no learning is taking place. Sadly many of the later lessons were the ICT lessons taken by other subject specialist out of their comfort zone.

As for teaching of coding, children should be aware of it, understand the importance of code and undertake some practical tasks to demonstrate how it works but not learn programing. Our nation’s workforce needs everyone to be able to successfully drive the technology; we do not need everyone to be skilled at working ‘under the bonnet’ only understand what happens there. What is highly important is that those that do work ‘under the bonnet’ should very highly skilled. Acquiring those skills is a role for vocational education but there lies another discussion.

Bespoke Training

Bespoke training is training designed to meet the differing needs of the learner or learners. A training program can be formulated so that the trainer works with individuals or small groups to equip them with the skills and capabilities to use software and systems already available to then at their work place. What is learnt can be put to immediate use for the benefit of both business and employees, providing value for money in training investment.

Advantages of Bespoke Training

·         Exact training program is negotiated before starting.

·         Prior knowledge and capability can be taken into account.

·         As many hours training as needed, these can be broken into short 2 hour session.

·         The course can be delivered when required at a time and date best suited to the business giving minimal disruption to normal working schedules.

·         Learn at your own pace.

·         Targeted at the need of the business.

·         Flexibility - pace and course content can change if needed.

·         Can be undertaken at the workplace.

·         The majority of what is learnt is put immediate use for the benefit of the business.

The Days Training Course

Having been on a number of theses course; a whole day sat listening to the presenter and taking notes. It would be interesting to find out at what point people do stop taking notes. I tend to stop after about two hours. I have realised that these types of courses are a very inefficient way of delivering learning especially for the kinaesthetic learner. The brain within about two hours will reach saturation point and quite naturally will need to consolidate what has been learnt and wish to apply that learning within practical situations.

The fundamental problem with a day’s training course is that it is generic in its nature; designed to meet a wide range of individual and business needs.  We will probably leave with a small percentage of what has been delivered and learnt that will be of immediate use, most of the rest being of little use or value at the present time. Some of it may be of value at a later date as capability and understanding develops trough putting the technology to use. The chances are that when you get to try applying a particular software feature (at some time after you were taught how) you have forgotten how to do it.

The brain is naturally selective about what it stores in long term memory, if learning is not put to use it goes.  Even the short term memory will fail to hold new learning when it is at learning saturation point.

The Day’s training course is an easy way for the trainer to deliver training. For those attending it is an inefficient way to acquire new and useful skills.

Welcome

As part of trying to get my head around what Blogging is about and of what value it is I thought I’d better start one. Some starter question:-

1. How do we ensure that people have the skills and capabilities to be effective users of technology: web, office, workplace, classroom or social?
2. What are the effective models for the delivery of learning or training?
3. Is ICT education in schools of sufficient high quality to equip youngsters will the understanding and skills needed in the workplace?
4. How do you raise awareness of the potential of new technology to business?