There's no power in your point!

I just returned from a three day conference on birth issues. Twenty-six contact hours. That’s 26 hours actually listening to the speakers. A lot of information to assimilate.

I have been attending professional conferences for over ten years now, and I’ve noticed a disturbing trend that was pervasive at this conference – the overuse of Powerpoint. At this conference, EVERY SINGLE PRESENTATION was a Powerpoint presentation. Everything seemed to blend together, and no one speaker stood out.

As a professional educator, I am disgusted with this trend. Powerpoint presentations are pretty much the most passive thing you can do. Not only is it almost exclusively used with straight lecture (the LEAST effective way to teach) the use of Powerpoint involves turning off the lights, reducing the teacher to a disembodied voice from the darkness. The learner and educator are completely disconnected. It is a recipe for napping, not learning.

Good education depends on there being a connection between the teacher and learner, and on changing teaching techniques often to keep the learner actively engaged and interested. Powerpoint allows for neither. I have presented at similar conferences several times and have always gotten great feedback, and never have I felt the urge to use Powerpoint.

This is not to say it cannot be used effectively. On the contrary, some presenters used it very well. The Powerpoint slides were used to show things that are difficult to communicate any other way, such as research data in graphical form or video clips to illustrate the concepts they were teaching.

Other presenters just had slide after slide with short phrases from their notes on monochromatic backgrounds. It was almost as if they were using the Powerpoint as their teaching notes. Some entire presentations consisted of the reading of slide after slide after slide. Frankly, I can read myself much more quickly.

So, to any and all conference presenters who may be thinking about your next presentation, some unsolicited advice:

* Consider WHY you want to use Powerpoint in your presentation and exactly how it could enhance the learning you would hope is happening. If you can't come up with a reason, don't use Powerpoint!
* Consider what other methods could be used to convey the same information, and use them! If even ONE of the presenters at this conference had passed on the Powerpoint and used other methods throughout, I would have probably kissed their feet. That presentation would have been memorable and well received as a breath of fresh air.

If you absolutely must use Powerpoint:

* Limit it to a portion of the presentation and keep the lights on and really connect with the audience BEFORE you use it.
* Avoid overly boring or busy slides. The slides should have a distinct purpose and yet not distract from what you are saying.
* Make sure your audience has a copy of the slides if there is a lot of information on them. This way they won’t be frantically writing everything down and can actually listen. You won't be asked to go back to the previous slide and wait, either. Do make sure the copies you give out are actually READABLE - sometimes between the smaller pictures, small font size, and poor copying they are not helpful.
* Do something besides lecture while slides are showing. You'll have to be creative and think outside the box, but your audience will appreciate it.

Thank you for listening to my little rant. Back to your regularly scheduled life now.

I'm going!

I really enjoy traveling and going to new places. And this summer I am lucky enough that I will be able to do quite a bit of it this year! Three trips in one year - a record for me.

Already I took a quick trip to Washington State to see my sister and meet my newest nephew. It was just a small taste, it left me hungry for more and we will probably plan a family vacation there sometime soon.

In June, the whole family will be going back to the East Coast for a week. We will fly to Boston, spend a day there, then drive to Acadia National Park in Maine for a few days. Then we will return to Boston for another day before flying home again. I have always, always wanted to see the coast of Maine. A big, giant thank you goes to GE, who has made the trip possible with their employee incentive program that paid for the airline tickets. Could not have done it otherwise!

In July, I will be going to Denver for the DONA International Conference. I attended the conference in 2003 in San Francisco and it was fabulous. Getting to meet doulas from all over the world (France, Argentina, and Singapore!), hearing lots of interesting speakers, good food, and a nice break from the day-to-day grind was exciting. Since this conference is closer to home, there will be more local doulas attending and that should be fun, too.

All the arrangements are made. Now I just have to wait, and I'm not very patient. I'm thinking about making a paper chain like we did for Christmas when I was a kid. Then I could tear off one link every day and feel like it was getting closer.