stand-alone presentation design document

7/31/2019 Stand-Alone Presentation Design Document

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INTE 6710 ~ Creative Designs for Instructional MaterialsProject 3: Stand-Alone Presentation Design DocumentJohn Paul Sharp

April 20, 2012

1. Significant PurposeThe latest published report from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) explores four longitudinal studies on 'at-risk' youth, or youth from low socioeconomic backgrounds, and thepossible correlations in academic and professional success between those who had high-artsparticipation and those who had very little. Because more and more public schools are cuttingarts programs and focusing more on reading and math, low-income families have less and lessof a chance to become exposed to, participate in and ultimately benefit from an arts education(Catterall, Dumais & Hampden-Thomson, 2012, p. 5).

Additionally, The Center for Education Statistic released a report revealing a real equity gap for low-income families. According to the Official Blog of the U.S. Department of Education, thisreport shows arts programs for struggling schools have been drastically cut in the face of the NoChild Left Behind Act (Brenchley, 2012, p. 1). When you look at both of these recent reportstogether, it pretty much seems like we know that arts can help everyone, yet we're cutting artsprograms for those who could get the most benefits.

The purpose of this presentation is to highlight the results of these studies in order to raiseawareness of the importance of arts education for all children and also give the presentation'saudience resources to help them bring arts into all children's lives in their own communities. Theaudience of this presentation is anyone who happens to be researching arts education statistics.More than likely, the individual who happens upon this material will already be curious aboutarts education to some degree and searching related key terms online (e.g., a Google search onthe latest arts education for youth). The target audience consists of adults, aged 18 to 99, fromall different backgrounds, but most likely sharing some type of interest in the arts.

Educators in secondary and college level classes could use this presentation as an icebreaker to a larger discussion with their students of the possible societal ramification to cutting arts outof public education for children from low socioeconomic backgrounds. Discussions could alsolead into possible solutions individuals and groups can initiate in their own communities toensure all children get equal educational opportunities. This presentation could spark the sametypes of ice-breaking discussions among early learning professionals and public schooladministrators in workshops, lectures and staff meetings to discover ways to integrate artseducation among other subjects in cases of limited budgets and resources.

Because I plan on integrating this presentation into my eLearning portfolio, many possibleemployers, professors and colleagues in eLearning, arts education and performance will end upviewing it. Likewise, this set of people will have varying backgrounds but will probably havesome type of interest in education and/or the arts.


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I want to present the kind of life a person with a low socioeconomic background can have whenprovided with arts education in childhood. Through the use of my own life story and my ownimages, I hope to personalize the presentation in a way that is emotional and inspirational. Iwant this presentation to show anyone why they should care about making sure all children in

America get exposure to an arts education. I want the audience to be inspired to explore in their own minds how social inequalities are expressed in their surroundings in terms of artseducation.

The use of limited text on large, full-bleed photographs is meant to emotionally captivate theaudience and emphasize the most important point of this presentation: arts education should beavailable for all children, regardless of their socioeconomic background. A public education is aliberty for all American children and to remove a critical component of that education for somechildren due to budget cuts is to deny some children their right to access their best potential.

2. A Picture of the FutureThe individual who views this presentation will have increased awareness about the importanceof arts education for all children. Ideally, she or he would be inspired to take a more active stepin supporting arts education, whether their action is as simple as voicing their opinions toeducation leaders and legislators through phone calls and e-mails or as complex as creating anonprofit arts education organization for children with low socioeconomic backgrounds.

An individual exposed to this presentation will learn about the National Endowment for the Artsand perhaps go on to learn more about government research of arts for Americans. Perhaps anindividual who already cares about this topic will gain recent statistical information from which toreference to in their own debates and discussions with others.

More specifically, I will attempt to meet these instructional objectives:

1. Given statistical results from the NEA study paired with intriguing public domainphotography, an individual will have increased awareness about the possible benefitsfrom arts education for at-risk youth.

2. Given a set of pictures of what our societal future might look like without arts education,an individual will have the opportunity to consider what types of societal ramificationscould exist by cutting arts programs from public schools in America.

3. Given different suggestions for supporting arts education for all children in the localcommunity (e.g., voting, volunteering, fundraising, etc.), an individual will have concreteoptions for becoming more invested and active in their community by actively supportingtheir local arts education

At the very least, if this presentation is able to get anyone thinking and talking about artseducation and social justice, I would determine it a successful instructional material. Withincreased awareness of the potential benefits arts education provides at-risk youth, an individualwill more likely care about the issue and support it as a responsible citizen.


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3. Clear Design Values

In my design decisions, I was mostly concerned with readability and emotional interest for mypresentation. Because the subject matter of arts education for at-risk youth is an emotional one,I wanted to make sure to convey that through the use of facial expressions in professionalportraits I own. By using my own name and story as an example, I hope to lend credibility and

additional interest toward the benefits of receiving an arts education. I was an at-risk youth and Inow have a rich arts background which I feel has helped me to find continued success in life, soI recognize how I can act as a symbol for my presentation.

1. Ideas are presented gradually, one at a time, with important ideas repeated or reinforced. In Presentation Zen by Garr Reynolds, designer John McWade suggests deliveringone idea at a time to make a great, impacting presentation (Reynolds, 2009, p. 110). In my ownprocess for creating the final rough draft of this presentation, I found that in order to getmaximum readability, I need to break up multiple ideas into two or three slides.

This method forced me to examine every bit of text to discover the most important informationat it's core, something Chip and Dan Heath suggest, in Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive

and Others Die , to enhance the power of a message through thoughtful simplicity (Heath &Heath, 2008, p. 28).

Developmental molecular biologist John Medina goes a step further in his book, Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School , and states the way to makelong-term memory more reliable is to incorporate new information gradually and repeat it intimed intervals. (Medina, 2008, p. 147). While most of the information relayed in mypresentation does not repeat specific ideas word for word, I do repeat specific images andwords to relay similar tones of information (e.g., Sabrina's '*sniff*' to relate sadness, the DragQueen's 'It's infuriating!' to show indignation of two facts), and my intention is to increase theaudience's potential for remembering the information in the presentation by creating repetition inthe way the information is delivered (i.e., the characters of the story).

2. All text is high contrast and large sized for maximum readability and of the same type(i.e., Gill Sans) to exude warmth and friendliness. By presenting one idea at a time withsome repetition in the delivery, I am able to maximize readability by also increasing font sizeson every slide for audiences with less than stellar eyesight. The problem with mostpresentation visuals is not that the text is too big, but that it is way too small, claims Reynolds.He suggests to use the same type of font throughout the presentation, using different sizes toemphasize importance, and lists Gill Sans as a Sans serif with a distinct, warm, friendlypersonality. (Reynolds, 2008, p. 35, p. 44, and p. 46). Because I want my presentation to beinviting and entertaining, yet potentially open the audience's mind, I make these specific fontchoices for my presentation.

When I created my initial rough draft, I sent it to my 62-year-old mother and some other friendsof mine in their 60s and 70s. I asked them if they could read all the slides. Most of them

struggled to read any slides that were under 35 pt. Former Chief Evangelist of Apple, GuyKawasaki, suggests in his blog, How to Change the World , find out the age of the oldest personin your audience and divide it by two. Thats your optimal font size. (Kawasaki, 2005, p. 1). Iwent through the whole presentation and made sure that every bit of text was larger than 35 tomeet the needs of audiences at the 70 year age range.

3. The slides are set to an instrumental song. Medina says our senses evolved to worktogether and we learn best if we stimulate several senses at once. (Medina, 2008, p. 219). Myintention for adding music to the presentation was to enhance the audience's learning

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7. I stand at the forefront of my own presentation and use myself as an example. I use myreal life as an example because I was labelled an at-risk youth and was lucky enough to beexposed to arts early on. According to Heath and Heath, stories stimulate and inspire. Andmost of the time we don't even have to use much creativity to harness these powers we justneed to be ready to spot the good ones that life generates every day. (Heath & Heath, 2008, p.237). By using myself as an example, I am recognizing that my story is a good fit for thisparticular subject matter.Medina emphasizes this idea, claiming real-world examples help the listener's brain to matchpatterns and the more personal an example, the more richly it becomes encoded and the morereadily it is remembered. (Medina, 2008, p. 115). Through the telling of my own story, I willmake a personal connection to the listener which will inspire them to absorb the actualinformation that follows. This design decision is basically repeated from my Pecha Kuchaproject as I found it to be a successful way for me to relay information I'm passionate about.

8. I appeal to the emotion of the audience wherever I can. Do not neglect the emotionalaspect of your solutions, Reynolds insists within his fourteen ways to think like a designer (Reynolds, 2009, p. 18). When creating my rough draft, I knew I needed to appeal to theemotion of the audience to persuade them to investigate the latest federal research on arts

education for at-risk youth because it is an emotional subject for so many people.Through his fourth brain rule that people don't pay attention to boring things, Medina saysemotional arousal helps the brain learn. (Medina, 2008, p. 94). I chose the portraits seen inthis presentation from a much larger group of photos taken in 2009. I only chose the photos thathad the greatest sense of emotion through facial expression to guide the way theinformation would be told by the characters.

According to Heath & Heath, people tend to care more about an individual than the masses(Heath & Heath, 2008, p. 223). In using my own name and story as an example, I'm providingan emotional opportunity for the audience to become interested in the information I have topresent. By making myself vulnerable, I can gain the trust of the audience and open their mindsto the core message of the presentation.


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4. Formative Evaluation ResponseLike I described in my design decisions, I'm primarily concerned with readability and emotion.The questions I asked peer reviewers were to describe their experience watching thepresentation just once. My questions also address the retention of the reviewers and whether or not they found anything objectionable about the content of the presentation itself.

After having shared various rough drafts with lots of individuals, I've come to realize that almostanyone could end up viewing this standalone presentation. I have received requests from four people to send them the finalized product so they can share it with their colleagues. Obviously, Ihave created interest and passion within many reviewers, but the real question is whether Ihave the best product to share.

1) What is the readability of this standalone presentation for you? How easily wereyou able to follow each slide? If there were sections of slides you struggled toread, please specify which part (if you can remember!) In some ways, this was anunfair and tricky way to ask the reviewer to describe their readability experience. How

can a reviewer remember what slide was hard to read when the slide was, in fact, hardto read?

Reviewer Answer

Adrian For the most part, your presentation is very readable. The SES slide is a bit toowordy, but I think that was the point, because the next slide says, What does thatmean exactly?

The equity gap slide is simple and clear.

The VOTE slide is awesome! Very effective at impacting my engagement.

My only suggestion would to make sure you spend enough time on certain slideswith more text. I think it was ok, but since I am not in control of moving the slides,you want to make sure the reader has enough time to read the entire slide.

Janet Okay, I feel a little resentful that you instructed I only watch once (**sigh** :-), as Ifeel as if I can't adequately pinpoint some items for you. I was able to very muchfollow the slides with the exception of the statics slides (if I recall, they are the onethat you cartooned)... they were very lengthy. I consider myself an avid reader, yetstruggled to comprehend the information before the presentation automaticallymoved on. Could you break it up (even thinking about what Duarte says to do...) --maybe split the large text amounts into two different text boxes?

I was impressed with both Adrian's and Janet's ability to recall their readabilityexperience. The common issues for readability from both reviewers are directed towardsthe slides in my presentation that are directly quoted from the NEA report. While thosespecific quotes are not the most essential facts for the entire presentation's coremessage, I do want to break up the text so that it is easier to read. Working with the


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limited space for the text, I believe using a typewriter effect on the text will help guide theeyes better and perhaps, make the text itself easier to read and comprehend.

2) How did the presentation make you feel, if any feelings at all? Emotional arousaland interest within the audience is important for this persuasive presentation. In askingthis rather open question, I was curious to see what type of responses I would get.

Reviewer Answer

Adrian After viewing the presentation, I felt inspired to become asinger/songwriter/dancer/actor. The presentation never really made me angry at thecurrent cuts to creative art programs. Unfortunately, it is something we havebecome accustomed to. However, your sequence toward the end of thepresentation about being a social advocate for the arts inspired me to volunteer more and incorporate those into my classroom.

I suggest either including some simple resources for people who want to help. You

could put these in the presentation or in an accompanying handout.

Janet The presentation made me feel a bit like I should darn well get involved somehow(and I have not an artistic bone in my body, and I still wanted to try). That things inmy life that may seem minor to me could make a major difference in a child's life. Itmade me feel upbeat and filled with a sense of action.

Both Adrian and Janet seemed to have been inspired by the presentation and that isreally my ultimate goal for this project. I like Adrian's suggestion of adding accompanyingresources. That would be a great idea for anyone sharing this presentation.

3) What was your take away from this presentation? What did you get out of it andwhat do you remember the most? What was the stickiest bits of the presentation?

Reviewer Answer

Adrian My take away message is to VOTE and incorporate the arts more into myclassroom. I know that may not be your intended message, but I think the point of your presentation is to inspire people to think of how they can increase artseducation. You do a nice job of making the audience feel empowered, while stilltelling them what to do.

I suggest making your main theme a reoccurring image that the audience willremember. I think of it like a signpost: here is that image again, that must mean themain message is here. I dont know how that would affect the overall scope andflow of your presentation. It flows nicely, so if you do make changes, be aware of how it could impact the other slides.

Janet To take a stance about art equity for at-risk risk students at struggling schools. You


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can take action to make a difference.

I feel confident that my core message was clear to both Adrian and Janet. Both of themcame to the realization that they are empowered as individuals to make a difference intheir community. Janet's suggestion about creating more repetition for a specific sloganor call-to-action is a great idea, but I agree that it would also deeply change the flow thatI spent hours perfecting. In this case, I feel that what I've created in terms of communicating a core message was successful and there's not a strong enoughargument to change the story and the flow too drastically.

4) How do you feel about the background music for this presentation? Is it anappropriate fit? Is it distracting at all? Music can enhance any project as long as itisn't pulling the audience away from the message or causing them any sort of discomfort. While music taste and choice can often be subjective, there is the possibilitythat real issues can arise from music choices and I wanted to see if there were anycommon themes in my reviewer's feedback.

Reviewer Answer

Adrian The background music was only distracting towards the end of the presentation. Asit got a bit faster, it seemed to get louder as well. If you can, try and keep thevolume consistent throughout the presentation.

The music was absolutely appropriate for the presentation. Given what I have seenyou produce in this class, I was not surprised to discover that you composed themusic. Well done!

Janet I love the background music. My only thinking is that at the very end of thepresentation, the beat changed and became just a bit distracting to me (I think it wasthe beat... something threw me off). I got used to the tone and pulse throughout andwas a little disappointed when it changed drastically. If the alteration in music at theend was added for a different effect, it worked, as it had definitely had a weird effecton me. I prefer the themed music that you had through most of the presentation(without the added, increased beat). However, given that, the presentation was sowonderful that I don't think that music, if not changed, decreases its value.

Adrian and Janet both mention that the music felt distracting towards the end, but bothfor different reasons (e.g., Adrian described a volume change, Janet described a beatchange). Janet also mentioned that if the music were unchanged, she didn't feel it woulddecrease the value of having it integrated into the presentation. Compositionally, Ibelieve they are referring to the bridge of the song that moves into a darker, more minor key and I have found it a common thing for some people to feel strange about hearingthose types of chord progressions. I'm making an artistic decision to not change the

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music. While both found the bridge distracting, they were still inspired, empowered, andable to comprehend the core message, so perhaps it can be excused as part of theedgier quality of my original work.

5) Is there anything you did not like about this presentation? If so, what would youchange? While seemingly obvious, I do want to know if there's anything within thepresentation that turned off the audience. These would be problem areas to give seriousconsideration as the moment the audience turns off, the audience stops listening.

Reviewer Answer

Adrian Your baby picture is pixilated. I know this is difficult to make bigger and bleed theimage off the edge of the frame (Reynolds, 2010, pgs. 100-102). However, if youcould somehow use a crisper image it would work better.

The disadvantaged kids picture and the graduation picture are a bit uncomfortableto the eye. I understand the technique you used to alter the picture, but it doesnt

match when placed next to your clean and crisp images of the other actors/actresses.

I really like the black edges that make me feel like I am watching a movie. If youcan, try and keep that design theme throughout. The graduation picture blends withthe background better.

Janet My only comment that I wonder is even worth mentioning is that your firstintroduction of someone other than yourself is Sarah. Her slide says, "Hi, I'm Sarah."Then, I don't recall having seen the two other women identify themselves (again,since I COULDN'T WATCH IT TWICE :-), I'm not sure if I missed this or not). If thelast two women (one is a strapless dress, and the other who I think was supposed tobe the official voice of reasoning -- wearing a blazer), are not identified with a "Hi,I'm XXX," why bother having Sarah introduce herself.

I completely agree with Adrian's comments about the pixelated and cartoonedimages. Those specific images were really the best formats I have available and Ihad to do the best I could to create more definition. While I agree that the imagesaren't as high resolution and high quality as the majority of images, they are usedin such a contrasting context (e.g., pictures of childhood, memories, the past)that I believe it is certainly acceptable for them to be low fidelity under the

circumstances.Janet's comments about the names of the characters presented is a good one,but I only used as many names as necessary to get the story rolling. Even theDrag Queen character says to Sabrina when she asks who she is: Don't worryabout me! The point isn't to know who the additional character's names are andto include them all would probably mean sacrificing the overall readability andcomprehension of the core message.


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To summarize my revisions based on the reviews, I will change the text for the larger quotes in the presentation to build-in with a typewriter effect. Otherwise, I feel the extratime and consideration spent in the initial revisions have produced a great overalpresentation I can be proud to have created.

BibliographyBrenchley, C. (2012). ED Releases New Report on Arts Education in U.S. Public Schools .http://www.ed.gov/blog/2012/04/ed-releases-new-report-on-arts-education-in-u-s-public-schools/

Catterall, J., Dumais, S., & Hampden-Thompson, G. (2012). The arts and achievement in at-risk youth : findings from four longitudinal studies. http://www.arts.gov/research/Arts-At-Risk-Youth.pdf

Heath, C., & Heath, D. (2008). Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Die and Others Survive. NewYork: Random House.

Kawasaki, Guy. (December 30, 2005). How to the Change the World . Online blog.http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2005/12/the_102030_rule.html#axzz1sF2QrUgP

Medina, J. (2008). Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School . Seattle, WA: Pear Press.

Reynolds, G. (2009). Presentation Zen Design: Simple Design Principles and Techniques toEnhance Your Presentations. Berkeley, CA: New Riders.

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