Here are some of the thoughts I have in mind in creating this blog experiment:
- Integrated notes. Although slides allow presenters to add "notes," it's often the case that the notes don't get read. In a blog post, I can put the slide part up at the top (so that it will show up in the browser without scrolling), but the notes will be just down below. The visual presentation won't be as artistic as in a slideshow, but since my only real goal is to convey information, I think having the notes right there with the "slide" will be worth the tradeoff.
- Integrated Twitter stream. Since one of my goals is to promote the use of Twitter as an online tool, having an integrated Twitter stream for the #UOConference hashtag (as a footnote widget) might be a good way to remind people of the power of Twitter, both during the presentation itself and also afterwards.
- Additional materials. I know that there will be all kinds of things I want to include in the presentation but won't be able to include because of time, and there will probably be lots that I think of after the presentation too, so I can just use additional posts here at the blog to include all those materials. This post is an example of the kinds of additional material I can include!
- Linkability. Some online slideshows make it easy to link to individual slides, but not always. With a blog, every post is easy to link to, and you can also link to labeled sections of the blog as well. Blog post pages are also indexed separately and will come up in a search engine; that is far less likely with individual slides in a slideshow.
- Live content. I added the Twitter presentation at the last minute (after another speaker had to cancel), and I sure was glad I was using the blog format for all that live content. Instead of just talking about Twitter embedding and widgets, I was able to do all of that in the blog posts themselves. Long live HTML!
- Blog demonstration. Blogs are, for me, the single best tool for publishing online, so I am really happy to use a blogging platform for the presentation itself. Since I am not a fan of slideshows in general, it wouldn't really make sense to have the focus for the presentation be on a slideshow. Focusing on a blog makes much more sense!
- Quick and easy. I am very familiar with blogging software, and with Blogger in particular, so this will be quick and easy for me to do.
For details about the Blogger.com set-up, see this post: Technical Details.
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