Praxis Post(er) Guidelines

The information below reflects the guidelines for the most recent conference and is provided now for reference. These guidelines may be updated for the next conference.

What are Praxis Post(er)s?

GSOLE Praxis Post(er)s are brief, prerecorded video presentations used to share practices and research about practices related to OWI and OLI. Post(er)s might examine teaching, tutoring, or the administration of online programs.

See below for guidelines and tips for preparing them for the upcoming conference.

How the Post(er)s Fit into the Conference

Pre-conference Previews

Ten days prior to the day of the synchronous online conference, conference participants will be invited to visit our Virtual Post(er) Hall, which will consist of links to GSOLE-hosted pages that each include one Praxis Post(er) presentation as an embedded video. The pages will also allow for asynchronous commentary on the presentations.

Live Q & A Sessions

On the day of the conference, Post(er) presenters will each participate in a synchronous video-conferenced panel including three or more fellow presenters. Presenters will be given five minutes each to briefly introduce themselves and their presentation and to offer remarks that engage the audience about their Post(er), which audience members are presumed to have already viewed. These remarks might take any of the follow forms:

Replies to questions or comments posted in the asynchronous comments on the Post(er)’s preview page.
Questions for the audience about OLI topics addressed by the Post(er), including past or current teaching or administrative practices, recurrent concerns about OLI teaching or administrative issues, and so on.
Questions or comments on another presenter’s Post(er), especially to compare approaches, observe similarities and differences in findings, and so on.

We hope these remarks and the Post(er)s themselves will lead to a robust conversation.

Presenter Responsibilities and Rights

Preparing and Recording the Presentation: In the following section, we suggest some common design and recording options. Most take advantage of free tools or tools commonly owned by or available to OLI instructors. Presenters are responsible for choosing a design platform that suits their needs. NB: The final recording should be 5-7 minutes and shareable through a URL.
Participating in a Praxis Post(er) Workshop: Presenters may participate in an optional workshop on presentation production using one of the options described on the next page.
Providing a Shareable Link to a Video at Least Ten Days Before the Conference: The tools discussed below each provide ways of producing shareable links to embeddable videos. Although the link must be functional ten days before and throughout the day of the conference to be included on the program, presenters retain all control over their recordings.

Preparing the Post(er)

Choosing a Development Platform

A variety of tools can be used to create and share videos online, including many common slide-based composition tools. In some cases, more than one tool must be used to complete all the necessary steps. Here are some possible scenarios:

Voice-over-PowerPoint presentations uploaded to YouTube—This option allows great flexibility in the design of the presentation, including the option of animations and other powerful MS PowerPoint features. But recording and sharing takes extra steps.
Adobe Spark Video presentation—This free platform offers little choice in visual design, at least when used in isolation, but recording and sharing are extremely simple.
Prezi with uploaded audio: Prezi, like Adobe Spark, is readily shareable. It offers more flexibility in slide design, but the audio for each slide needs to be uploaded as a file.
Google Slides (or MS PowerPoint) slides exported as JPEGs and used in Adobe Spark—This option allows you the visual design flexibility of a typical presentation app (albeit without animations), but also Adobe Spark’s simple recording and sharing options.
Camera recording of traditional poster presentation—This option simply converts analogue to digital. The main challenge for this format is ensuring visuals are viewer-friendly. It is possible, however, to edit visuals after recording with a video editor.

Designing the Presentation

A micro-presentation like this doesn’t allow much time to support big claims or demonstrate intricate processes. But that doesn’t mean presenters can’t discuss sophisticated OLI concepts and practices. The key is to remember that the Praxis Post(er) is just the start of a discussion about OLI issues or innovative teaching and administrative practices.

Keep in mind that presenters will have a chance to elaborate on many aspects of their presentation within the asynchronous and synchronous Q & A.
Keep in mind that viewers can pause to look at particular visuals for an extended period of time, even if the voice-over can’t actually walk them through the details.
Finally, keep in mind that closing the presentation with questions for the audience can provide a great way to frame the Q &A that follows.

Other Production Considerations

Here are a couple of other considerations to ensure that your presentation will both meet the guidelines above and be accessible to viewers.

Consider reading from a script, rather than speaking extemporaneously as is often encouraged for live conference sessions. Not only does a script help keep the time of the presentation under control, but it also serves as ready-made captioning.
Take advantage of captioning and other accessibility features as much as possible to ensure that the presentation is accessible to all GSOLE conference attendees. Besides using a script, presenters can try some of the automated captioning features of the platforms listed above (e.g., YouTube creates captions—but they often need editing).

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