Rudaí 23 – Thing 5: Video Presentations

I have done the Thing, but I am wondering if I should have spent more time playing with the Powtoon features. It’s difficult to strike a balance between learning as much as possible, and just getting the thing done. I had a brief think about the instructions for this week and how you should plan your story before you even think about building the visual part of the presentation. I have used Screencast-O-Matic for work before, and decided against using it for this task. Usefully, Powtoon also prompts you to create a story by suggesting you start with slides that cover 1) Introduction, 2) Describing the problem, 3) Presenting a solution, and 4) A Call to Action. 

I spent a bit of time looking through a recent report from the Carnegie UK Trust on Digitally Savvy Citizens. I was hoping to come across a good problem, but it turns out that Irish people are pretty savvy about their online security. It’s not a major concern, but one point that stood out was that the 55+ demographic are less likely to verify information sources. We often think that young people are more at risk of “fake news” sources etc, so this data was an interesting angle to highlight. I also think that a lot of our instruction for older people in ICT is quite functional, and perhaps neglects the digital and information literacy side of things. My Call to Action, therefore, is a reminder to make digital literacy a part of programmes for older people and include this element throughout Lifelong Learning. This is a very hasty idea, and not that well thought out, it’s very much just to have something to put in the video!

Even in the free version, the themes that you can build on are nice and have visually appealing graphics. I managed to tweak the timings a bit, but I can see that taking quite a bit of time as you add in more slides. I would like to spend more time playing with the animations within each slide. I feel that when I need these features for a specific task, I will be comfortable with exploring them having gone through the basics. I added a link to the full report in my final slide, but you cannot click this link in the YouTube version of the video.

I have seen Powtoon videos used as instructional videos in the past, and I’m not sure if they have enough going on in them to engage a viewer with their learning. I can imagine them being good for providing information, or incorporating them into a  longer presentation to give you a break from speaking.

Below, I have embedded my Powtoon experiment.

‹ Rudaí 23 – Thing 4: Communicating Visually

Tagged with: Carnegie Trust, editing, powtoon, rudai23, Thing 5, video
Posted in Information and Digital Literacy, Professional Development, Reflection