Keynote Speaking about non-key Notes

Powerpoint is Dead!!!! Long Live the Keynote!!

Ever since my undergrad degree (Film at Deakin University) I have been a Mac convert. The reason was singular, Final Cut Pro. This wonderful program was the reason why my eyes were opened to the luscious lives of fellow mac users and I have neigh looked back to the days when I was forced to slum it on a PC. I have had my iMac for 3 years now, and not short of 2 months ago used my centrelink start up fund to pay for a new macbook pro. You can always count on the labor party for irresponsible handouts, and you can count on me to collect them willingly despite my aversion to voting for them.

FCP love fests aside, I recently upgrade to OSX Lion. Fantastic design and interface it also threw out a cheeky curveball that I am still not super impressed with, my microsoft office applications would no longer work. Plums to you apple. I get why they did it. They have their own shiny programs Pages, Numbers & Keynote that they want their devoted clientele to consume with the blissful, ignorant acceptance Apple as come to expect. I can say this because sadly I have found myself in this ridiculous crowd. A slave to the sleek, shiny and powerful. The designer computers.

Back on track, as a result of my Lion conversion, my hand was forced into upgrading to Pages & Keynote. And welcome to the teaching relevance. I knew I would eventually get there. Planning a lesson for the VCE Media class at my current placement I decided to test out my new baby in Keynote. She purrs like a kitten as I add each slide. Years of editing have given me a large intolerance to cheesy transitions, not unlike a coeliac at a bakery, and yet I found myself using every dodgy star wipe and rolling transition in the program. Ashamed, I chose to come clean with the class about this before the lesson began, and may have even saved some face by letting them guess which one was my favourite (It was pretty awesome)

Keynote presentations (not powerpoint anymore) will become a pretty standard tool in my classroom for not only the end of my rounds, but also into the future. And in keeping with tradition, I now show you my dream class to teach...Funk Dancing for Self Defense

Till next time children, keep watching the skii's

The Beginning of the End

This first opening to my blog has been rather difficult to get off the ground, if not for the lack of knowledge on the formalities of blog introductions. It would be easy to dive headfirst into the very reason behind why the blog was created in the first place (ICT and how it can be utilised in the classroom for those playing at home) but I feel that a bit of context and background about what you are likely to read about is a necessary addition and an apt opening to this, my first blog.

My name is Rohan. Studying education at the University of Melbourne, my teaching methods are Media Studies, Drama with English as an additional learning method. I completed an undergraduate degree at Deakin University: Bachelor of Contemporary Arts: Media Arts in 2009. 

There, now we ain't strangers no more we can continue. But it won't be today, as that would defeat the purpose of my introductory post. Do check back in occasionally though, next time I promise I will write something substantial, and not waste your time like I just have now.

As an apology, here is a common reaction of mine to most questions I get about pedagogy...