Content
Text Presentation Deliverables - Word Document, PowerPoint Presentation, Videos
For a text presentation, you will need to turn in to your facilitator:
- A PowerPoint presentation. This will contain the images, tables, charts, graphs, and video placeholders (videos are delivered to your facilitator separately) that you plan to use during your session presentation.
See Slideshows for information on PowerPoint presentation recommendations.
- A Word document (*.doc, *.docx) that contains the text for your lecture, poll questions for the participants, prompts for questions from the participants, and prompts to display the PowerPoint slides that you provided for your lecture.
You will need ~9 pages of single spaced text per 1 hour of lecture, ~13 pages of text per 90 minute lecture, or ~18 pages of text per 2 hour lecture.
See Text Document Guidelines for advice on Word document formatting.
See the section on Lecture for advice on lecture content.
For courses that offer CE credit, the inclusion of poll questions and question breaks in your presentation text will allow participants the opportunity to earn points towards their course CE certificate by answering polls and asking questions.
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Terms
Course Area - this is the web page from which you will access the course main page, library, classroom, and message boards.
Unity Classroom - this is the web page where the interactive Real Time Sessions are held. The Unity Classroom contains a collection of windows that are used to deliver your presentation to the participants.
Conference Room - Text content is delivered to the course participants via the Conference Room window.
Presenter - Visual content (images and videos) are delivered to the course participants via the Presenter window.
Moderation - the Conference Room window can be Moderated such that only instructors and staff can send text to the Conference Room. While the Conference Room is moderated, any text (such as questions) sent by participants is redirected to a Question Screener. This allows participants to ask questions as they think of them without interrupting the presentation. Only instructors and staff have access to the Question Screener.
Question Screener - this is a tool that collects text sent by the participants when the Conference Room is moderated. When the instructor reaches a natural break in their presentation, they can then use the Question Screener to present a selection of participant questions with their (the instructor's) answers.
Warp, Warp Type - the lecture text provided in the submitted Word document is processed and turned into a Warp. The Warp file contains reformatted lecture text and executable macros. Warp Type is the Unity window that executes the macros and sends the lecture text into the Conference Room a line at a time for the participants to read.
Transcript - all the text, slide links, and poll results that are displayed in the Conference Room will be saved to a session transcript. This transcript is posted to the course library the day after the Real Time Session for participants to review.
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Presentation Details
Polls
Polls should be included in the Word document containing your presentation lecture. We recommend you provide approximately 5 polls per hour of lecture.
A poll consists of a poll prompt, a question, 2-6 possible poll answers of which only 1 may be correct. If the poll has a correct answer, you will need to designate it. Example:
Poll 06
Hypercalcemia is most commonly associated with which form of lymphoma?
Multicentric
Extranodal
Mediastinal (correct answer)
Cutaneous
Alimentary
Try to incorporate these polls evenly throughout the lecture to provide a nice change of pace during the presentation.
Breaks for Questions
We recommend that you have at least one planned break in your presentation to answer questions. For Rounds or sessions that are less than 2 hours long, this is typically done at the end of the presentation. For a 2 hour session, you might consider an additional break for questions approximately halfway through your lecture.
To incorporate a break for questions from the participants, simply add text soliciting questions on a line by itself in your lecture document. Example:
Does anyone have any questions?
Slide Prompts
Within your lecture document, you should include prompts for the PowerPoint slides to indicate where in your lecture you want each slide presented to the participants. The prompt should be on a line by itself and have the PowerPoint slide number and the slide title. Example:
Slide 39: Liver Lesion
It is generally best to send the slide or video so that participants can view it before the instructor restarts the warp file to discuss what is being viewed.
Note that the slide title and caption, if any, are displayed in the Conference Room when the slide is sent. Therefore, it is unnecessary to repeat the caption text in the warp file.
It's best to keep slide titles short so that the entire title can be displayed on the Presenter header.
Lecture
For the prepared text in the warp file, you should be conversational, i.e., write your comments for your warp file as you'd say them out loud in a small group rounds or conversation. Your hand-outs may have a more formal style, but warp files are best if they're less formal in style.
Conversational style usually calls for shorter sentences than most people generally use when writing. These may seem a bit choppy when you read your warp file aloud, but it will be fine for those reading the text in the Conference Room window.
Infusing a bit of your personality and sense of humor into a session is always good and provides good moments of mental relaxation in a long session.
One good approach is to organize around a series of subtopics. For each one, you may wish to start by describing a scenario. It could be a poll question.
For example:
A dairy cow, two weeks postpartum, has a purulent vaginal discharge.
Appetite and milk production are normal.
Poll 09
What is the most appropriate management of this case?
Intrauterine infusion of antibiotics
Intramuscular injection of antibiotics
No treatment
Intrauterine infusion and intramuscular injection of antibiotics
The correct answer is: No treatment
If you feel that the question will be difficult, you may wish to provide a few hints to lead their problem-solving, especially as you introduce the first couple of polls. Another good technique is showing a slide and then asking a poll question about it. Variety is good.
Then, return to your lecture text. Provide an explicit statement of the correct poll answer if there is one. It's good to provide a summary and recapitulation of what the point was to stave off many questions.
After each subtopic, it's good practice to ask for any questions and to emphasize any take-home points you have made.
If there are new developments or new ideas regarding the subtopic, you may want to discuss them now. You can include URLs in your warp file text for people to check later when the transcript is available in the course library. Or, perhaps you have some personal experiences to relate. This "presents the material" for those who like to have a lecture-like presentation; the polls and Question Screener are geared to those with a more active, participatory learning style.
This process can then be repeated. Alternatively, you may wish to introduce a topic with a slide and/or a poll "quiz" so that participants are reminded of how they may use the information you'll be presenting in a clinical setting. Many of the participants, especially in those courses not designed as review courses, are primarily interested in the clinical aspects of your presentation, developing differential diagnoses or problem lists from signs, rule-outs, treatment options, and the like. Some participants may not be as current with trends, new treatments, and new studies. They'll appreciate your providing guidelines.
Text Formatting
You can embolden, italicize, and underline text to emphasize or delineate subtopics. Emboldening key words is especially helpful when participants try to locate information about specific topics in the session transcript.
Abbreviations
Spell out any abbreviations the first time you use it, whether it's in Warp Type or when typing in answers to questions. Glossaries in the library handouts are a real help for reference as well. Our participants are worldwide and have a varied knowledge base; we don't want anyone to be left behind because of an abbreviation misunderstanding!
Units and Measures
With our international audience, it is best to include data in both US and SI units, or include the lab reference range for any lab data. The same goes for temperatures. Many may use Fahrenheit, but please try to include the Celsius temperature too.
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How it Breaks Down
Polls - The polling information is extracted from the lecture text and manually entered into the Polling Management tool by your facilitator. A poll prompt is placed in the lecture text to mark the placement of the poll.
Slides - The slides in the PowerPoint presentation will be converted to JPG files and loaded to the VIN server to create a Unity Presenter slideshow.
Videos - Any videos provided for the Real Time Session will be sent to VIN Multimedia, processed, and then loaded onto the VIN server. The slides with the name of the video files (placeholder slides) will be replaced with special slides that will, when sent to the participants, cause the associated video to load and play in the participant's Presenter window.
Lecture Text - The lecture text will be converted by the facilitator into a Warp file:
- Sentences will be broken into short phrases that are easily read as they are sent into the Conference Room by the Warp Type.
- Slide prompts are turned into macros that, when executed by the Warp Type, load and send the specified slide to the participant's Presenter windows.
- Poll prompts are turned into macros that, when executed by the Warp Type, load and send the specified polls as popup polling windows to each of the participants. The polls are configured to run for a minimum time and/or participation level.
Questions - The Conference Room is typically moderated during a Real Time Session, causing the text input to the Conference Room by the participants to be rerouted and held in the Question Screener.
A small beeping sound is issued with each line of text sent to the Conference Room by Warp Type. So while the Warp is being sent (and the beeping sound is being heard) the instructor can focus on answering questions posted to the Question Screener by the participants. The instructor selects each question, types in an answer to the Question Screener, and saves their answer. When the Warp Type stops at a break for questions, the instructor then selects each question/answer set in Question Screener and sends it to the Conference Room for the participants to read.
Please speak with your facilitator to schedule a Unity training session and audio check prior to your Real Time Session.
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Services Provided by VIN/VSPN Staff
Instructors are supported by VIN and VSPN facilitators who help prepare your course materials and assist you during the Real Time Sessions. The VIN and VSPN CE facilitator will edit your warp files to:
- provide a final spell-check using a spell-checker with a veterinary dictionary;
- check that the warp file introduces all polls, videos, and slides by number;
- format (i.e., parse) them (correct line length for ease of reading in the main CONFERENCE ROOM window); and
- add emboldened, italicized, and/or underlined text per your submitted word-processing file (VIN only). Each VSPN CE instructor is expected to add needed font formatting (for example, emboldened characters) once the instructor has loaded the warp file into the Unity directory.
- VIN facilitators will load poll files, slideshow file(s), and session-ready warp files into the Unity folders for instructors. These files will be accessible within any Unity classroom from the associated Unity windows, i.e., Polling Management window, Presentation Manager window, and Warp Type window.
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