And, finally, the dreaded Presentation Project...

Of everything I've had to do for this course, the presentation assignment was the one that made me drag my feet, in part because I've had limited experience with PowerPoint but mostly because of the subject matter on which I decided to base the project. I chose 'Internet Research' as my topic. I did a ton of research for this project and I found that a lot of research instruction for college students is lacking in a lot of basic material. I actually have a story from my own life regarding this lack. I took a German course at Yale one summer and I decided to live on campus- sort of trying to see how the other half lives, I guess. I was the only one on my floor who DIDN'T go to an Ivy League. I actually use the Yale Library Online catalog a lot in my own research and I was very familiar with the website. One day, there was a commotion in our suite because one of the girls was unable to find an article she needed to write a paper. Everyone was involved trying to locate this article...on Google. I stepped in and introduced my suitemates to the Yale online catalog and within moments, I had full text access to the article that she needed. These girls were seniors at Yale and they did not know how to use the library online resources. If Yale doesn't provide the correct instruction, I shudder to think about the rest of us normal colleges! Therefore, I felt that I simply couldn't let this topic go. BUT the information I did find was poorly organized or pre-supposed a lot of researching experience. I wanted to create a tutorial that college students could use that would help them find credible resources for their papers. I dragged my feet in part because I questioned my own ability to be an instructor in such matters. Eventually, I pulled together the information I needed and I laid out my presentation. One of my critiques of Internet Research guides that I found was that they spent too much time on the differences between search engines, databases and meta-databases and not enough time on evaluating results, which I feel is one of the most important aspects of Internet research. I decided to rely on a glossary to delineate and explain the differences and definitions of databases, meta-databases, and search engines. I tried to come up with a step-by-step process to college Internet research. I feel that my presentation is informative but I, myself, am not an authority. I really don't have the right to instruct in these matters because I myself am a student. I based the presentation on issues I've had and that I've known other students to have when conducting research online.
As for using PowerPoint itself, I have to admit it took me a while to re-familiarize myself with the software. I must have spent an entire day trying to get just the buttons to work properly but I was very pleased with the result. I think I went a little crazy with the animation but there were some deliberate choices: I tried to use slower animation for the more important information to force the user to take a longer time on those particular slides. Looking back, I feel a little sad that I didn't use sounds as well but maybe this is a good thing. Silly sounds would have made it seem a little less professional. I ended up downloading a whole bunch of clip art from the Microsoft website and I tried to add graphics to make the tutorial more visually appealing. My first version of this presentation had the same background for every slide, barely any graphics, and an enormous amount of text. I tried to break up the monotony by using different backgrounds and layouts. I tried to get some feedback from other students regarding the tutorial's usefulness but I didn't actually get to see the knowledge in action. I'm hoping it is instructive. I was striving to keep a theme through all of my projects; I wanted everything to be informative and useful to people using the library or conducting research. I feel like I've managed to engender that spirit in everything I've completed. For this project, however, I feel the need for feedback from experts. I wish I had more access to the student body because I would love to post this tutorial in a place for students/faculty to use and leave feedback. Faculty feedback would be particularly helpful regarding what they expect their students to be able to accomplish. When I finally finished this project, I felt it was a pretty decent attempt at such a large and amorphous topic.