Category: Cram Session
Hi all,
When defending my MA thesis, I will be asked to prepare and hold a Powerpoint presentation. So using Powerpoint is a must. In earlier occasions, for example when holding a presentation for a seminar, I would always ask a fellow student to do the clicking and switching to the next slide for me so I could fully concentrate on the contents of my presentation and didn’t need to worry about accidentally missing slides or staying at the wrong slide for too long, so the text I presented wouldn’t match the actual slide on the screen anymore. When it comes to the defensio of my MA thesis, however, I don’t feel comfortable about asking a fellow student to do the slide-switching for me, as I would definitely prefer being alone with the two professors and the person writing the exam protocol. After all, the situation is exciting enough … So do you have any suggestions how I could click through the slides of my presentation without sighted assistance and without losing track of the slides at the same time? Of course I could bring my laptop, but I find this a bit cumbersome, and you never know whether it will cooperate with the beamer. Is there a possibility to use the iPad and navigate through the presentation using Pages? This would enable me to have full control over my presentation, as I would be able to work with VoiceOver. Or do you think asking one of the professors to do the clicking would be OK as well? As there’s only one professor responsible for the defensio of my MA thesis, it would be perfectly feasible to ask the other professor who at this moment has nothing to do to help me out. I have also considered this possibility, but find it a bit strange. Maybe because it seems a bit unconventional. What are your views on this matter?
Many thanks for your help. It’s greatly appreciated.
It's certainly possible for you to control your PowerPoint slides without sighted
assistance including by using iDevices.
However, given the nature of your presentation, I'd definitely ask the Professor
to move your slides on for you as it sounds as though you won't have had much
practice in doing this without sighted assistance beforehand. Even if you had,
I'd still be tempted to ask so that you can focus on the content.
This is subject to one caveat though: You said that you asked a student to click
your slide to make sure you didn't miss a slide or didn't stay on a slide for too
long so that the text matched. Did this mean that the student decided when to
move your slides on? Your professor obviously won't decide for you, you'll need
to be explicit about when you want your slide changing.
I have to give PowerPoint presentations most weeks to large audiences, and I
almost always ask someone in my team or at whatever conference I'm speaking
at to move my slides on. While I could do it, I'd never be 100% certain that the
contents of the screen had changed, even if the text on the Braille display had.
Thanks so much for the encouragement to ask my professor for help. To be honest, this is the way of tackling the problem I had always liked best. For as you mentioned, one can never be sure whether the slides really do move the way they should and match my oral comments on the presentation. I was just not sure whether asking the professor for assistance would look a bit strange. When I asked a fellow student to move the slides for me, I always made explicit when I wanted to move on, which generally worked very well.
Thanks again for the quick reply and the encouraging words. This was very helpful.
Unless powerpoint has changed, you should be able to hit the space bar on your own and also, if you have an apex, you can click next on your apex and hit the space bar on the computer to fully do your presentation independently.
Don't know how useful this might be in your particular situation, but I had a professor one semester who asked us to print our presentations so we wouldn't have to struggle with the madness of hooking up different laptops to the projector. We would just take our printed presentations up with us and swap out the slides by hand. I found this really easy because I just had to get the printed pages of my presentation in order and I could switch them out in the projector myself.