PowerPoint to Teach Composition

Rachel just posted a question via a comment on the post Background Reading - Use of PowerPoint:

I need help with a Powerpoint possible use. I teach freshman composition at a university to non-native speakers of English. They often come to me for extra help in their other classes. However, they ALWAYS need help creating PowerPoint presentations for their other classes of subjects such as economics, nutrition, statistics, travel & Tourism...etc. I spend time teaching and explaining "transitions", custom animations"...etc. I thought, as I am helping them so much, is there any information as to using Powerpoint as an actual tool to teach composition writing? It would be great to impart knowledge just in the structure of a composition....any thoughts or resources out there? Thanks

I always say, I love questions. However, I'm a bit at a loss on how to answer this question.

It seems wrong to be teaching about transitions and custom animations to this audience, right?

I don't know much about using PowerPoint as a tool to teach composition.

Any help for Rachel?

Workshop Exercise Design - Help Needed

I've just posted Identify Knowledge Work Tasks - Workshop Exercise which describes a workshop exercise that I'm considering using in several different workshops. I feel like it makes a lot of the discussion more concrete.

I'm really hoping that folks will help me out by:

a. telling me what they would say if they were in the workshop and
b. giving me thoughts on the exercise itself.

The last time I posted something like this it was a HUGE help and I significantly redesigned the exercise which probably saved me a lot of grief. See comments in Conference Session Breakout - which convinced me not to do it as a breakout activity. Actually, I probably never will do session breakouts unless there's a REALLY compelling reason... but I digress.

Please help: Identify Knowledge Work Tasks - Workshop Exercise

What are the Odds?

At lunch today, I had a funny experience that I just had to share. The person I met for lunch (a CEO at a client company) today is his birthday. And, it's my birthday. And it's today.

So, if I'm right, then it's a 1 in 365.25 chance that we share a birthday. And maybe a 20 in 365.25 chance that it would be on our birthdays that we get together. So, that's roughly a:

1 in 6,700 chance

and even the chance of that happening in a lifetime is pretty remote.

It just struck me as a pretty cool occurrence.

The only disappointing part is that when we told the waitress that it was both our birthdays, she seemed completely unimpressed. (But she did give us each free dessert.)

Revolution in Workplace Learning

Just wanted to announce that I'll be doing a full-day workshop in Cincinnati (actually in nearby Kentucky) for the Greater Cincinnati ASTD on July 15. I think this is going to be an interesting and fun workshop. I'm hoping that a few folks who read this blog will go.

You can go to their site: http://gcastd.org to find out more about specific place, time, cost, etc.

Likely I (and others in Work Literacy) will be doing similar workshops over the next few months. If you are interested, but can't attend this workshop, then you might want to go to Work Literacy and go to Services to state your interest.

Hope to see some of you there. If you are going, please drop a comment.

The workshop description is:

A Revolution in Workplace Learning

Tools such as blogs, wikis, social networks, social bookmarking, and RSS readers are revolutionizing formal and informal workplace learning.

GCASTD is bringing nationally-known expert Dr. Tony Karrer to Greater Cincinnati to present a fun, engaging, fast-paced workshop that will allow you to use these "eLearning 2.0" methods and tools for yourself and your organization.

You will:

• Learn specific methods you can use to accelerate your own knowledge work and learning
• Define strategies for eLearning 2.0 for your organization
• Make a plan for getting an eLearning 2.0 toolset for yourself and your organization

Who Should Attend

• Leaders responsible for organizational learning and development
• Individuals seeking to improve their own skill and knowledge

About the Facilitator

Dr. Tony Karrer is CEO/CTO of TechEmpower, a software, eLearning and web development firm based in Los Angeles. A expert on using technology to improve human performance, he is a sought-after presenter on eLearning 2.0 and it’s implications on workplace learning. He is author of the award-winning eLearning Technology blog.

Dr. Karrer earned both his M.S. and his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of South California. He attended USC as a Tau Beta Fellow, awarded to the top 30 engineers in the United States, and was valedictorian for his class.

Clients include: Credit Suisse, Citibank, Lexus, Microsoft, Nissan, Universal, IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Sun, Symbol Technologies and many others.

Second Life Learning Videos

If you want to get a sense of what Second Life is like and particularly what it is like as part of learning, here are some videos that help describe this.

| View | Upload your own

What videos did I miss?