A statistics-on-social-media update

Are you really aware of how big this is? (watch directly on YouTube if the window doesn't size properly)

PowerPoint gone mad

Here's a wonderful example of the terror of PowerPoint. Of course it's not Ppt one should look to for the cause of this. We're hard on Ppt and it takes the brunt of the criticism because it's an easy target. But Ppt doesn't invent this type of content on its own, does it?

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/27/world/27powerpoint.html?emc=eta1

Ppt is used all too often as a  manuscript for the speaker so try to focus on not showing the audience your manuscript - build a content for the AUDIENCE instead.

Absorb those great words

The next time you hold a presentation try checking out this site first.

http://www.onlineuniversities.com/blog/2010/04/50-incredible-historical-speeches/

It's a collection of some of the best-known and impressive speeches, in English and with a strong American bias! I have a theory that listening to the voices of his great speakers can have a positive effect on your own intonation and maybe even on your self-confidence. Just don't let yourself get phased out by the gap between us normal people and them.

Keep it simple s....d

Well I've been going on about this for some time now so I hope no one thinks this is news ;) but here's a link to a very interesting scientific article which demonstrates once again that you should keep it simple.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/10/051031075447.htm

The title of the article is wonderful: “Consequences of Erudite Vernacular Utilized Irrespective of Necessity: Problems with Using Long Words Needlessly.”

I guess you get the message.

A couple of quotes: "Anything that makes a text hard to read and understand, such as unnecessarily long words or complicated fonts, will lower readers' evaluations of the text and its author."

"One thing seems certain: write as simply and plainly as possible and it's more likely you'll be thought of as intelligent."

Did you know that Word has a built in readability check?

Amazing what you find out just by chance.

1. On the Tools menu, click Options, and then click the Spelling & Grammar tab.
2. Select the Check grammar with spelling check box.
3. Select the Show readability statistics check box, and then click OK.
4. On the Standard toolbar, click Spelling and Grammar .
   
   When Microsoft Word finishes checking spelling and grammar, it displays information about the reading level of the document.

Charisma Wordle

I tested a new idea last week. I was sitting eating lunch in the middle of a one-day course for a group of 78 students and it suddenly occurred to me that I finally had the opportunity to test something that will only work really well with a large group of people. The perfect opportunity! I divide the students up into 13 groups and gave each group the instructions to define a charismatic speaker using five keywords.I opened the website Wordle.net and (painfully) typed in all the words they gave me. That's quite a lot of words. Then I just clicked the button, chose a layout and colours and hey presto! He is the result. The size of the words reflects their frequency and the website algorithm automatically arranges them. Apart from the odd spelling mistake which messes up the frequency of course, you can see which words were the commonest and you get an instant impression of the results. Great fun, great site!

Link: http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/1929130/100421_självständigt_arbete

More tools

Here's a bunch of computer-based tools that might be useful if you work with page mockups or graphic design or designing webpages.

http://www.badlanguage.net/seven-website-mockup-tools

Sorry about the missing side

My blog seems to consistently remove the right-hand side of any video window that I put up. In other words the column width in my  browser is narrower than the video window.   I might manage to fix it one day but in the meantime I suggest that you just go to YouTube or Ted and view the video in situ there. Sorry about this!

Pawan Sinha on how brains learn to see

This is a very interesting story, quite a long presentation but it holds a fascinating message about how our brains learn to see. As with many of the videos on TED.com a great learning experience.