Technical Considerations When Presenting Virtually

Abstract

There is a plethora of technological innovations available to assist with presentations. This chapter addresses the ways that technology can contribute towards impactful presentations. A distinction will also be drawn between using technology in face-to-face (F2F) presentations and using it when delivering online. For F2F presentations, PowerPoint is effectively the standard application to use. There are a number of equivalents, however, such as the open source tool, Impress. This type of application allows the user to generate attractive slides combining graphics, spreadsheet functionality, links, animations and more. This software is reliable, standard and the learning curve is not too steep. In experienced hands, very creative effects can be achieved. However, the default slide design consists of lists of information, and this may not be the optimal way to present a topic to an audience. Another possible application for generating a set of slides is Google Slides, which is part of the Google Docs package of web-based software. This application benefits from being extremely straightforward to learn and is set up to easily permit remote collaboration. There are a number of software applications which can convert between video formats (including the capability of digitising older video from analogue sources), which then means that a film can be embedded in a presentation. In this way, it is possible for Lara to show a product demonstration video from within her presentation, without the need to open a second application to do so.