Power Point Presentations 2
    I totally agree with the comments of Deepak Chandra Srivastava, John
Rosenfeld and Stephen Henley about the ineffectiveness of laser pointers.
Not only are there problems with colour-blind persons in the audience, but
it is extremely difficult to hold a laser pointer absolutely still.
Conference organisers please note this and do provide an "old fashioned"
bamboo pointer - a much more effective tool for the job.  But in this
"modern day and age" conference organisers insist that we move with the
times and may only provide us with a laser pointer. The answer to this
problem was shown to me by Terry Engelder:  he always brings his own
telescopic pointer, like that of a mobile radio antenna, which only takes up
some 15cm in his hand luggage and can expand to some 40+cm when he gives his
talk.
    Continuing this theme of the disadvantages of modern presentation
methods I have heard that some planned conferences are to insist that all
speakers must use the Power Point presentation method.  I think that this is
wrong and that there there should be a certain flexibility here:  some of
the best talks I have heard the with most effective visual aids have used
35mm projection slides (perhaps with double projection possibilities).  In
any case the transferring of original field photographs into the Power Point
presentation technique is almost bound to loose a little of the original
photographic sharpness, and with slides there was rarely a tendency to pack
more than one image into one frame (fault No. 3 in my previous list).
    I agree with John Rosenfeld's comments about the effectiveness of
blackboard presentations.  I was brought up in structural geology classes by
Gilbert Wilson, who relied completely on chalk and blackboard to put over
the facts (but one has to admit that he was a real artist at this, as well
as being able to summarise with great precision the geometric facts of
structural geology).  I don't believe that Gilbert even owned a camera -
university lecturers during the '50s were not paid enough!  When I started
to give  university lectures I used the same techniques as Gilbert, and I
found that there was always something so satisfying about having a
beautifully clean firm wooden blackboard and a handful of coloured chalks
with which to work.  But let's be realistic:  in the time we are allowed to
present our meeting talk there just is no real possibility of blackboard
presentations (even though in normal university lectures such presentations
provide, in my opinion, some of the best ways of presenting basic
information).  At meetings however, organisers should note that there is no
excuse to completely do away with some means whereby a contributor can write
or draw something, and they should provide some such means for doing this.
The trouble is that, in this modern "with it" age, even if we have such a
possibility, we are usually subjected to these awful 1sq.metre of shiny
white plastic or glass sheets on a shaky tripod stand and partially
dried-out felt-tipped pens which squeak out high frequency noise. Ugh!
Meeting organisers please note!

John Ramsay, 26 February 2006. <[log in to unmask]>