Based on Prensky’s descriptions, I am a digital immigrant. I was born in 1970 and the very first Apple computer I saw was when I was seven and in the 2nd grade. It took up half the table it rested on and the monitor was thick and the screen only black and white. I never saw it again after that year - but its very existence foretold a future I am now living. From Atari's Pong, to the introduction of Cable TV, technology has grown leaps and bounds in my time. I started teaching when grade books were still in print, but by the time I left the classroom in 1999, they had been moved over to a database and email addresses were distributed to the staff. I have never been drawn to technology. I never enjoyed video games - albeit a game of Pong hooked up to our mammoth TV killed the void on a hot summer day. My brain has been wired to learn in a linear fashion. For that I am thankful. Because studies show, the brain learns better that way. These digital natives, of which I have fi...
Presentation design is rooted in the art of storytelling. Storytelling is a powerful tool for transferring knowledge. Socrates used storytelling as a means of stimulating critical thinking. Of course he also preferred to use dialogue and debate with pupils, but he used storytelling to illustrate a point. One such story is recounted in Plato's Phaedrus in which Socrates shares with Phaedrus (Plato) the story of how writing came to be and why its invention would ultimately be the demise of human memory which he believed to be the foundation of knowledge. I share this with you as I believe presentation design is the modern equivalent of the Socratic method in which the intent of the presenter is to transfer knowledge to the audience. The presenter poses questions, provides answers, stimulates emotion and brings the audience to a new understanding. Of course, Socrates would never promote the use of slides, but it's not really the slides that tell the story, they're an aid us...