My dissertation presentation: A work in progress

So, I got an email from the Learning Sciences Lab at the National Institute of Education in Singapore about a Research Scientist position in New Media that I applied for. They want a Skype interview next week! While that is awesome, it’s also complicated. They want me to prepare a 15 minute presentation to launch the interview (which I’m taking as more a conversation to get to know each other). I hadn’t yet created a job talk, so a couple of days ago I started working on one.

The thing is, I don’t really want to do a powerpoint slideshow. A couple of weeks ago, while brainstorming with ESTG different ways for how a conference session could be more participatory, Phil quickly showed me prezi.com. (The conference session mentioned is the one I’m in with Moses Wolfenstein, Ben DeVane, Sara Grimes, and Sarah Walter at the Digital Media and Learning conf later this month!)

Here’s my prezi so far:

What’s cool about prezi is that it isn’t as linear as powerpoint can be. You can zoom in and out of points of interest, which works really well, since it lets one load a presentation with a ton of info that can be dived into or not, depending on the circumstances of the presenting. I think what I’m going to try to do is fill my prezi in as much as possible but then just cover the high-level stuff in 15 minutes. At the same time, I’ll share the url with the search committee and they can explore different avenues of my research independently of me giving the presentation. What’d be cool is if people could comment with a live twitter feed or somesuch at the same time as a presentation… or maybe non-live comments a la YouTube.

6 thoughts on “My dissertation presentation: A work in progress”

  1. looks good, but it also looks to be around 30 minutes long perhaps longer with exposition. you want 1 slide for every 2-3 minutes, if you cover too much in too short of time, without enough depth, you won’t look as good as if you can cover one thing very well and waive at the rest of the dissertation. Think of 15 minutes as… The single most important contribution of my research is: x, here is the question that lead me to x, here is the method through which i discovered x, here is where x fits into my dissertation, x restated clearly again.

  2. Very cool. I just opened a Prezi account (thanks for the link), and I can’t wait to start using it. I like the idea of creating non-linear presentations, especially for teaching, because each of my four classes is very different and this would allow me to focus on what each class needs. Good luck with your interview!

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