These are images of title pages of presentations I've created over the past few years for various occasions. Each of these are described in detail below.
Automated Course Recommendation System (ACReS)
This is a proposal I wrote for the Office of the Registrar at Michigan State University. It was intended as a follow-on
project to an overhaul to a system called ECRS that I did in 2008. Part of the Academic Orientation process involved
use of spreadsheets and a VB program ("the Hans program") to feed class registration data back to that office. ACReS was
intended to move that subsystem online, and to interface with the ECRS. To my knowledge, the project was never pitched.
I included this presentation because I was rather fond of some of the effects I built for it, and because it contains
some technical images of design work. Note that the system was not implemented; the schema never left the development
environment, and has probably since been destroyed.
This presentation is not narrated, and contains several animations. Some animations are triggered by mouse click, and
others follow other events automatically.
Exploring XML
In 2009 our team started a training program in which interested people could ask for presentations on various
topics and anyone could give a presentation on any of these requested topics. The program took off after I
introduced the team to the Ignite and Pecha Kucha presentation formats. At first, not many were suggesting
topics for presentation, and fewer were actually giving presentations. This was the first one I presented —
I chose to mimick the format of my site because, quite frankly, I was using my site as the model upon which
I gave the lecture; my intent was to present it at work, but post it here and make it available under the
how-to... area. To pep things up a bit, I added some content that was popular on
the web at the time, such as references to the cornify! code and the
YoDawgYo meme.
This presentation is not narrated, and contains some animations. Some animations are triggered by mouse click, and
others follow other events automatically.
iEnable, iEngage
I wrote this presentation on servicing mobile Web users with existing Web content for the
2009 Committee on Institutional Coordination (CIC) CIO
TechForum, hosted by Michigan State University in October, 2009. Competition for presentation
slots was fierce, and I was not selected to present. I included this presentation because it shows my great interest
in providing essential content to a mobile population (what college student doesn't have a web-enabled
mobile phone?), and because I invested a lot of time and care in the appearance of the slide deck and
its animations (particularly on the title slide — it was meant to be displayed for a while, as people entered
the room). I'm quite proud of this one!
This presentation is not narrated, and contains some animations. Some animations are triggered by mouse click, and
others follow other events automatically.
Ignite AAST
This presentation is an introduction into the Ignite and Pecha Kucha forms of presentation. The presentation
itself follows the Ignite format. The idea behind these formats is to deliver only very high-level content
quickly (this presentation runs in under three minutes). Presenting in the format is a lot of fun! I included
this presentation because it describes the format that some of the other slide decks may follow (the presentation
on the Microsoft Outlook "Nickname List" is one such deck).
Since launching the Ignite program we have held approximately 15 to 20 presentations in numerous half-hour
time slots. Use of the Ignite format has been a successful tool for my team.
This presentation is not narrated, and contains no animations. The slides are timed and advance on their own.
The Microsoft Outlook "Nickname List"
This presentation is a fast, high-level overview of the mechanism Microsoft uses in its Office Outlook
product to "remember" the names and e-mail addresses of people and resources whom you e-mail. The deck
follows the aforementioned Ignite format.
This presentation is not narrated, and contains an animation. The slides are timed and advance on their own.
"Programmers Rock!": MSU Take Your Child to Work Day, 2008
Multiple departments and colleges of Michigan State University participate in Take Your Child
to Work Day events. The annual evolution is geared to participants between the ages of 8 to
14.
Before the presentation, I handed out several ordinary objects to the children attending --
then at different points I'd discuss the relationship of that object to programming. (For
example, one of the objects is an alarm clock; setting its alarm is a form of programming.)
I included this deck because it is very creative and animation heavy. At one point in the deck
a Rubik's Cube is displayed; the image is a link to a Web-based program, written in Java, that
allows visitors to interact with a virtual Rubik's Cube using a mouse and gestures. At another
point the computer "acts up" and displays an image of a nerd, with thick glasses and trousers
pulled up to his chest. Then the program is "adjusted" to encourage students to get good grades.
This presentation is not narrated, and contains several animations. Some animations are triggered by mouse click, and
others follow other events automatically.