Making a Difference - Presentation (Paper #4)

It was exciting to shape a YouTube video that introduces the new SOS classroom! In setting out to create this presentation, my first intention was to communicate both the background story of LAUSD school closures and concern for children that fueled the initial creation of the SOS Classroom Project. Using Microsoft PowerPoint, I wanted to capture something of the importance of the SOS website’s focus and rationale in introducing how people can contribute to the site and how kids can easily use it as a Web 2.0 learning resource. Indeed, besides communicating the drama of the story behind the site’s development, my goal was to preview the SOS Classroom’s technology and distinguishing qualities as a learning portal. My goal was to speak to a universal audience of both children and adults.

I strongly felt the presentation should be a kaleidoscope of moods and factual content based upon visuals rather than text. I first wrote my text and then made an album of printed pictures which served as my hard-copy story board in anticipation of posting my content on PowerPoint. I re-wrote the story and arranged the images in a kind of function outline that opened with a “universal statement” to establish the mood, moving on to observations that would serve in getting the audience onto the same emotional page. I began moving the mood through pictures that conveyed sympathy and pathos, moving forward to concern for the problem before formally introducing the site. The text moved on to disclosing information about site’s rationale, making brief statements about distinguishing SOS advantages as well as how the site is being built through on-going postings. The presentation finally moves on to an appeal to kids through animating the Sosie character as a brand image. Ultimately, the PowerPoint moves back to the first “universal statement” frame in a bookend film making technique. Recapping, the PowerPoint starts out as an address to the “world,” speaking to adults and ends by appealing to kids, coming full circle back to the “world.”

I combed the internet for photographs and downloaded music from Germany whose rhythm serves as an engine that drives the pictures forward. It was exciting to put the pieces together, timing the frames and arranging their sequence against the text and beat of the music. As stated, I wanted to tell the SOS Classroom story primarily as a visual display highlighted with sparse but informative text. I wanted to Communicate drama, information, and conclude with cute kid appeal - these were my goals in designing an introduction to the SOS!