Research Project Presentation
I presented my research to the other Higher Diploma students yesterday and it was well received. To prepare for my presentation. I used Apple’s Keynote, part of the iWork ‘06 office package. I must say I was very impressed how easy it was to put together a professional presentation. It was a joy to use as compared to Microsoft’s PowerPoint software. As with most Apple products, Keynote was very intuitive and has several built in templates to choose from based on your audience. You can make it look fun or professional, or somewhere in between. The slide transition effects Apple borrowed from OS X are very impressive, but my favorite effect is the reflective picture. If you use iTunes, you know what I’m talking about…how the album artwork appears to be resting on a glossy black table with its reflection in front. It is very easy to add a tables, graphs, pictures, music, videos and even websites.
The presentation view is pretty slick as well. It allows you to see a clock, your elapsed time and your notes on your MacBook, while your audience can only see the appropriate slide. The software is well worth it just for Keynote, but it also includes Pages, Apple’s meager attempt at a word processor. I anticipate the next iteration of iWork (perhaps ‘07?) should have more advanced spreadsheet functions and Apple users may be able to dump Microsoft once and for all. Until then, I still use Excel as well as OpenOffice.org for the word processor and spreadsheet functions.
The downside to my presentation was partly due to Apple’s decision to make a different display adapter for the MacBook than what was used on the iBook G4. When I got to the presentation room, I had my old iBook VGA adapter and to my shock and horror, when I plugged in the cord to my MacBook, it did not fit. Damn you, Apple. That’s like making a new iPod that doesn’t function with all of the old accessories and cables. Oh wait, they did that with the new Shuffle as well. Fortunately, Keynote has the ability to export to PowerPoint, so I just dumped that file on a USB key and used the instructor’s notebook for the presentation. Unfortunately, I didn’t have all the snazzy features of Keynote.
I digress. Despite these problems the presentation went on without any problems. I outlined my paper and proposed direction, got some great feedback from my fellow students and instructors. The idea of presenting a paper while you are working on it is very new to me as an American student. I did something similar last semester and I had my doubts about this practice, but once I presented my topic in front of my peers, I was sold on the idea. By presenting the research during the research, I am able to look at my topic in a whole new light and focus on areas that may not have been entirely obvious. For example, my instructor suggested that I not only look at the economic impact of gasoline taxes, but to also look at the political discourse. Furthermore, he suggested separating these into a few sections and examining opposing views. The class feedback was useful and I also learned a valuable lesson to not trust adapters!
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