Slidecast Yourself Exploring the possibilities of a new presentation tool Jordi Casteleyn & Andr Mottart

Many educational theorists stress the importance of social aspects for effective learning. In communities of practice for instance, groups of practitioners might learn from each other and eventually constitute a shared identity. Web 2.0 provides an ideal opportunity for this. An example of such a Web 2.0 information technology is slidecasting, which can be described as podcasting by synchronizing PowerPoint and voice. Anyone can upload their slidecasts to a website with an interface similar to YouTube, and anybody can watch these products. However, there is limited research on this topic, its possible application in education and its popularity in businesses. We therefore studied the educational implications of introducing slidecasting in the classroom, sent a survey to our students to detect their attitude towards this new teaching tool, and organised a focus group with communication professionals. We can conclude that slidecasting can be successful in education, but that it will not immediately gain access to the corporate world due to problems concerning confidentiality and the very nature of slidecasting. Keywords: slidecasting, Web 2.0, education, presentations.

Source: Casteleyn, J. & Mottart A. (2010). Slidecast yourself. Exploring the possibilities of a new online presentation tool, International Professional Communication Conference Proceedings 2010, 255-261.

Source: Casteleyn, J. & Mottart A. (2010). Slidecast yourself. Exploring the possibilities of a new online presentation tool, International Professional Communication Conference Proceedings 2010, 255-261.

1. Web 2.0 as a community of practice A recurring challenge for technical communication educators is to produce real-life assignments, as the situated learning theory stresses that the learning process will improve if the students are confronted with authentic and/or realistic learning environments [1, p. 306]. Moreover, certain educational theorists, for instance Tripp [2, p. 306], argue that this environment should also be interpreted as a social context. In these communities of practice (a term coined by Lave and Wenger [3]) it should be possible for students to collaborate with experts, support each other and eventually develop their personal and professional identity. On his personal website, Etienne Wenger [4] describes these communities of practice as groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly, and lists three crucial characteristics. First, these communities constitute an identity that is defined by a shared domain of interest. This shared competence separates the members of a community from other people. Second, the notion of community implies that people interact with each other, learn from each other and eventually build relationships with each other. Finally, the second part of the term community of practice is also essential. The members of such a community are practitioners and develop a common framework that every member draws upon or refers to. If we define Web 2.0 as the more open, personalized, participative and social version [5] of the former Web, then it can be the virtual equivalent of these communities of practice. For instance, the businessoriented website LinkedIn is aimed at building networks with contacts who have similar job positions, and encourages exchanging information among members of these professional groups, which can lead to a shared knowledge of business practices. Of course, this view upon Web 2.0 as a community of practice could also be fruitful for education and could increase the efficiency of existing learning practices. Some educators are perhaps apprehensive of Web 2.0 because it is simply too provisional, unpredictable and uncontrollable to be marshaled for traditional learning [5]. This paper will try to counter these assumptions by providing extra information about the implementation of this social software. 2. Slidecasting as a Web 2.0 community of practice A less-known example of such a Web 2.0 teaching tool is slidecasting, which could be described as podcasting by synchronising PowerPoint and voice. Previously, this technology was mainly used by educators in e-lectures, but since mid 2007 websites like SlideShare (www.slideshare.net) have made the production process much more user-friendly, which has broadened its use to professionals and students. The software needed to create such a slidecast can be found on the average computer, and almost every type of file used as visual aids for a presentation is supported by the website. The slidecast itself can also be forwarded, paused and stopped at any time. Furthermore, these websites have become a real-life online community of practice. These virtual presentations can be freely accessed, and the user interface enables showing appreciation for a slidecast, commenting on it, befriending the producer of it, etc. By tagging your slidecast with several keywords and choosing a category it belongs to, you deliberately place yourself in a community of practice where members call on similar knowledge, but of course, the final success of such a community depends on the quantity and quality of the contributions of its members. 3. Researching slidecasting Although there is a treasury grove of information on presentations, the published research on slidecasting focuses primarily on e-learning. Griffin, Mitchell & Thompson [6] give empirical evidence that synchronized audio and video are more effective than the provision of separate media items containing the same information. However, they fail to mention more details about this new genre, nor do they refer to slidecasting by students. Moreover, the identity issue is not extensively covered by academic literature, although recent research (for example Casteleyn et al. [7]) has indicated that this aspect takes a central position in Web 2.0 products and their interpretation. The performance and construction of identity online are ultimately a social phenomenon, which shows the relationship between Web 2.0 and communities of practice. Furthermore, slidecasting might also provide pedagogical benefits. Research by Mottart and Casteleyn hints at this [8], but there is little empirical evidence. Finally, perceptions of students about e-lectures are mostly

quite positive, and despite the mixed results from earlier research it could also be proven that it provides an educational advantage [Cramer, Collins, Snider, and Fawcett in: 9]. On the other hand, although both educators and students are willing to use the full potential of social software, internet for educational purposes mostly still seems to be limited to searching information and communication. [10] In addition, research by Burke and James [11] seems to suggest that a new teaching technology is positively regarded when students perceive it as novel, but no data can be found about student attitudes towards producing slidecasts themselves. Based on this literature overview, this paper will concentrate on three topics: The slidecast as a teaching tool: What are its possible pedagogical benefits? How could the online community of practice affect the performance of the students? Students attitude towards slidecasting: How do students perceive this? The slidecast as an emerging genre: Which distinctive features do professional communicators attribute to it? Within the framework of a communication course, we asked 89 undergraduate students of informatics (Ghent University, Belgium) to produce a slidecast, which was the final assignment of their presentation skills training. The participants had to post the internet link of their slidecast on a forum of the universitys online learning environment, which made it available to all students and which should convey the idea of a community of practice to the students. 4. The responses from the educators The undisputable use of slidecasting for education is of course for the teaching of presentation skills. At almost any stage in the process of the training of presentation skills this new teaching tool might prove its success. By bringing the real world into the classroom it could be seen as the culmination of a communication course, or it might be an appealing online environment in which students can give feedback to their peers, before they have to perform in front of the total group. In addition to this, slidecasting answers a two-faced phenomenon that is challenging todays education: personalisation and globalisation. Because you hear the speakers voice, the slidecast is individualized in a way that many other teaching practices are not capable of. Slidecasting is also happening in an authentic digital environment, which is open to the whole world. The students products can be viewed by other students from different countries, business professionals, or just random people who get intrigued by the content of the slidecast. At this moment it is important to introduce the theory of Kenneth Burke (1897-1993). Summarising the theoretical framework he developed cannot be restricted to a single paragraph, but here we only want to focus on the theme of identification he explored. According to Burke, identification plays a central role in rhetoric, and consequently in life itself. Individuals form selves or identities through various properties or substances, which include such things as physical objects, occupations, friends, activities, beliefs and values. As they ally themselves with various properties or substances, they share substance with whatever or whomever they associate and simultaneously separate themselves from others whom they choose not to identify. [12, p.69] When Burke formulated this in 1950, some might have discarded his thinking, but Web 2.0 has proven the vitality of this theory. The profiles on social network websites are carefully constructed tokens of identity: you associate yourself with what you like and detach yourself from what you dislike. The users from these websites are also well aware that the readers of their profile will interpret their actions accordingly. Performing an action in Facebook could therefore be compared to acting on a stage. [7] Slidecasting embodies all these features of identification. The website will automatically link the students slidecasts to other content-related siblings. The students can edit their profile to their preferences, and they can show their appreciation for a certain slidecast by favouriting it. By doing so they deliberately remove themselves from other (types of) slidecasts. As they fully realize that there is a (possibly unknown) audience watching their product and their profile, this process of identification is strenghtened. As a result, a Web 2.0 environment, and slidecasting in particular, will intensify the commitment of the student to the course. Friendlander and Macdougall already demonstrated that this student involvement is a key factor in student success. [13] One of their proposed strategies for increasing student involvement in learning included increasing student participation in out-of class learning activities by linking those activities to specific course

assignments. Slidecasting is an example of such an out-of-class learning activity, and the theory of Burke gives a possible clarification of why this process is effective. 5. The responses from the students 5.1. Method In order to answer the question how students perceived slidecasting, an online survey was created. We based ourselves on the UTAUT model, that Venkatesh, Morris, Davis and Davis [14] created to understand the individual acceptance of new information technologies within organisations. UTAUT stands for Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology, which combines eight user acceptance models into one unified theory and uses behavioural intention or behaviour itself as the most important dependent variable. In the UTAUT model three constructs are seen as significant direct determinants of intention: performance expectancy (the degree to which an individual believes that using the system will help him or her to attain gains in job performance), effort expectancy (the degree of ease associated with the use of the system), and social influence (the degree to which an individual perceives that important others believe he or she would use the new system). In addition to this, two direct determinants of behaviour are described: behavioural intention (which Venkatesh et al. do not explicitly define), and facilitating conditions (the degree to which an individual believes that an organizational and technical infrastructure exists to support use of the system). Finally, three other constructs are added to our survey, because they were significant predictors of intention and behaviour in other models: attitude toward behaviour (an individual overall affective reaction to using a system), selfefficacy (a judgement of ones ability to use a technology to accomplish a particular job or task) and anxiety (evoking anxious or emotional reactions when it comes to performing a behaviour). In the UTAUT model, gender, age, experience and voluntariness of use are considered to have only a moderating influence on the other constructs, which makes it even more interesting for us to integrate this model into our research as our population is relatively homogeneous concerning these factors. Our group of students consisted of 7 females and 82 males, and all from the same age group (18-20 years old). Furthermore, as we conducted this survey at the end of the first term, they should all have the same level of IT experience by then. Although Venkatesh et al. focus on the acceptance and usage of information technologies in organisations, the UTAUT model is able to account for 70 percent of the variance in usage intention, which ensures that this model can also be applied to other situations. It is even not limited to IT applications, nor does it have to stay within the boundaries of organisations. For instance, in 2009 Norsila binti Shamsuddin used the UTAUT model to study how deep students involvement and acceptance towards the adoption of the technology used in Computer Graphics and Image Processing subjects. [15] This is just one example of the possibility to integrate this model into research of educational settings. Unlike other studies, which also made use of the UTAUT model, we did not add any other determinants to the list of factors. Of course, the original 30 statements were translated from English to Dutch (which is the language used in the classroom), and they were modified to our specific case study. The scaling for all the factors was based on five point Likert scaling: from 1 (totally disagree) to 5 (totally agree). In addition to this quantitative survey, there was a qualitative part in which we asked our students to give three positive and three negative aspects about slidecasting. After the deadline of the assignment of the slidecast, this online survey was available on the digital learning environment, which the students could easily access and are already familiar with. By the time we sent the questionnaire to our 89 students, already 16 people had stopped taking the courses of informatics. 56 returned the survey, but 3 students had filled it incompletely and their data had to be removed from the results. As only 4 females (n=53) took part in the survey, gender aspects will not be discussed here.

Table 1. Key figures of the determinants Determinant Performance expectancy Effort expectancy Attitude towards using technology Social influence Facilitating conditions Self-efficacy Anxiety Minimum 1,00 2,00 1,25 2,00 2,75 1,80 1,00 Maximum Mean Mean 4,50 5,00 4,50 4,25 4,50 4,00 3,50 2,7075 3,9575 2,9387 3,2689 3,5094 2,7434 2,1557 Std. Error ,10791 ,07846 ,10366 ,07465 ,05386 ,06970 ,08088 ,78559 ,57122 ,75464 ,54342 ,39212 ,50745 ,58881 Std. Deviation

5.2. Results Due to the small sample size we will only focus on two types of analysis: a basic analysis and a correlation analysis. In our situation, it is impossible to compare different test groups, software programs or different new information technologies. In our opinion any other analysis would therefore convey us results which would be difficult to validate for another population. Table 1 gives an overview of the results of the seven determinants which are scored on a five point Likert scale. It shows the minimum, maximum, mean and standard deviation of the factors. The two items which are the most striking are effort expectancy and facilitating conditions. Apparently the students think that slidecasting is easy to learn and use, although nobody had ever produced a slidecast yet. Moreover, they are convinced that they were capable of making a quality slidecast, and that all the necessary resources for this were at their disposal, whereas the educators support was available but quite limited. The low score of anxiety also indicates that slidecasting is nothing they are afraid of. One student commented on this: I can imagine that not all students are familiar with this software, but on the other hand, this is the department of informatics, so... Table 2 gives an overview of the correlation between the seven determinants. There is a strong positive correlation between attitude towards using technology and performance expectancy. Appreciating slidecasting entails expecting that slidecasting will prove to be useful in the future. Furthermore, especially social influence proves to be a strong determinant. A positive between social influence and performance expectancy, effort expectancy and attitude towards using technology can be discerned. The social context of an educational setting (colleagues they have befriended, but also the educators) seems to play important role in the success in the introduction of slidecasting into the course. Finally, there is a negative correlation between anxiety and effort expectancy. It is quite logical that apprehension of slidecasting would influence people in how they think how much time and effort they need to spend to be become competent at slidecasting.

Table 2. Correlation analysis Determinant Performance expectancy (PE) Effort expectancy (EE) Attitude (ATUT) towards using technology PE 1,000 ,242 ,764 ,531
**

EE

ATUT

SI

FC

SE

1,000 ,340 ,502 ,200 ,084

* *

1,000 ,542 ,014 ,174

** **

Social influence (SI) Facilitating conditions (FC) Self-efficacy (SE) Anxiety (A) ** p < 0.01 level * p < 0.05 level

**

**

1,000 ,326 ,234

*

-,045 ,136 -,323

1,000 ,172
**

1,000 -,269 1,000

-,605

-,427

**

-,366

-,033

In the qualitative part of the survey, students were asked to give three positive three negative features of the practice of slidecasting. In addition to some prominent technical advantages of slidecasting (such as the ability to share it with the whole world, and to play it again whenever you like it), they also mention that slidecasting would make presenting easier for people who become nervous quickly. Apparently, the digital environment of SlideShare is seen as a safe controllable place without an audience. On the other hand most students acknowledge that slidecasting misses some key aspects of presenting: for instance, it doesnt feel like a real presentation, it is difficult to be enthusiastic when presenting, and the benefits of body language are lost. The aspect that is most referred to is (the lack of) interaction between speaker and audience. Although most students are more than familiar with the social aspects of Web 2.0 technology, they feel that commenting on a slidecast or asking the producer a question via private messaging is inferior to real-life interaction. It is interesting to see whether a focus group of professional communicators would come to the same conclusions. 6. The responses from the professional communicators 6.1. Method Three weeks after the last student had completed the survey, a focus group of professional communicators was organized. In this type of research we aimed at finding patterns in the interview data that would correspond with previous results. Furthermore, we wanted to discover the potential of slidecasting in the corporate world. The seven participants were all male, 25-35 years old and held positions in companies that compelled them to deal with communication on a day-to-day basis. Everybody was based in Belgium, except for one who is in charge of a subsidiary of a Belgian company in the United Arab Emirates. Their functions focus on marketing, human resources communication, business and technical writing, training, sales and management. The organisations they are currently working for range from SMEs to multinational companies, from advertising and communications groups to NATO. A systematic procedure was created to lead the focus group. First, they were asked about their current jobs, their experience with Web 2.0 in the workfield, and what their definition of an online presentation was. Secondly, a 10-minute slidecast of one of the students was watched. During this, they were asked to write down their impressions and make a list of possible positive and negative aspects of slidecasting. The focus group session was recorded and a transcript of it was completed afterwards. The notes of the participants were collected too at the end of the session.

Bearing the research question in mind, these transcripts were coded for relevant themes, and these codes were given a temporary definition. While going through the transcripts these definitions were sometimes challenged, and eventually larger categories were created in which all codes could be grouped. 6.2. Results Web 2.0 seems to be a hot topic in their work field. Many managers are fascinated by it, but most companies seem to hesitate to implement this into their internal and external communication due to a lack of clear-cut strategies to rely on. If social media are used, it is only in a business-to-consumer context, and never in a business-to-business situation, or as one of the participants summarized it eloquently: Not a lot of regular people want to buy a nuclear plant, and I cannot imagine how Web 2.0 could be productive when trying to sell something like this. Furthermore, confidentiality issues complicate the story. For instance, contrary to the philosophy behind Web 2.0, the visibility and accessibility of the information are considered to be negative aspects. Moreover, on a technical level, certain organisations do not even allow video streaming on their network. In addition to this, the focus group produced several different definitions of online presentations, but none of them corresponded with slidecasting. Their top of mind description of online presentations entailed viewing the speaker, being available to a larger audience than usual and being able to react instantly to what the speaker is saying, but nobody spontaneously referred to the specific features of slidecasting. After having watched an example of slidecasting, most participants of the focus group acknowledged the possibilities of it. There is less chance of misinterpretation of the message because the tone of the voice of the speaker gives enough clues on how to understand the information. It is also an attractive approach to archiving your presentations online without first having to adopt any extra IT skills, but particularly, it could lower costs in certain circumstances, because a presentation can be watched several times for the same cost. On the other hand, they see a greater number of limitations to its use in the corporate world. Perhaps a corporate speaker, for instance a CEO, could benefit from it, it might be convenient in a training setting, or perhaps it could be practical in a multilingual context, but the lack of face-to-face contact is absolutely detrimental to, for instance, the relation with the customer. Although they accept that visuals surpass text-only communication, they find slidecasting relatively alienating, it is trying to sound natural in an unnatural situation. Webcasting such as TED does could be a better option, but especially the absence of live interaction with the speaker annoys them. Commenting on a slidecast is not a good alternative, because everybody can read these remarks, and this might give rise to confidentiality conflicts. Moreover, the presentation itself appears to receive all the attention instead of the speaker whom they regard as the most important factor in a presentation. Concluding, they see slidecasting as an example of the Web 2.0 phenomenon, not as a tool which has merits on its own. Slidecasting might be integrated into their corporate communication, but only in a very limited number of situations, and the quality of the slidecast (especially concerning visuals and animation) should increase significantly. The distinctive features of Web 2.0 (such as sharing, reacting to information and personalising the internet) are absent at the moment in the Belgian corporate world, and they claim that the feasibility of introducing these features into their businesses is rather low. 7. Discussion and conclusions Slidecasting appears to be an attractive new teaching tool, because it combines a Web 2.0 environment with a product that the students can relate to personally. The concept of the community of practice can be connected with the typical characteristics of Web 2.0, and the identification process that this brings with it increases student involvement and therefore student success. Students also acknowledge that producing a slidecast is feasible and they have the necessary facilitating conditions to complete the assignment. It is important to note that the emotional context plays an important role in the success of slidecasting by students. There is a clear positive correlation between their attitude towards this new technology and their expectancy to use slidecasting again in the future. Moreover, the social influence parallels with the students performance expectancy, effort expectancy, and attitude towards slidecasting. Sufficient attention should thus be given to the emotional aspects of slidecasting. The contrast with the results from the focus group of professional communicators is quite revealing. According to these professionals, slidecasting (and Web 2.0 in general) will reap no success in corporate life.

They emphasize the importance of the speaker for the presentation, which now tends to be overshadowed by the content, the PowerPoint presentation and the interface of the website. External factors as confidentiality and technical limitations also obstruct the current implementation of slidecasting into businesses. At the moment, slidecasting therefore appears to be very intriguing for educators and forward-thinking communicators, but not an everyday tool for businessmen. However, there are certain limitations to this study. This research focuses on the possibilities of slidecasting in Belgium. Although many of the recommendations and data from this paper could be valid in different situations, we can safely claim that there will be cross-cultural differences. For instance, one participant of the focus group stated that there are major contrasts in the approach of communication between Anglo-Saxon and Belgian companies, and the student group that took part in our research was almost exclusively male which flattens out any potential gender differences. It might therefore be interesting to compare the results from this paper with these from other educational and geographical settings.

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[13] Friendlander, J., and Macdougall, P., Achieving Student Success Through Student Involvement, Community College Review, vol. 20, no. 1, pp. 20-28, 1992. [14] Venkatesh, V., Morris, M., Davis, G., and Davis, F., User Acceptance of Information Technology: Toward A Unified View, MIS Quarterly, vol. 27, no.3, pp. 425-478, 2003. [15] Shamsuddin, N., Students Perception towards the Implementation of Computer Graphics Technology in Class via Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of technology (UTAUT) Model, in Visual Informatics: Bridging Research and Practice, Heidelberg: Springer Berlin, 2009, pp. 886-893.