ExplainEverything Tips for Live Presentation

This post accompanies a workshop that I am leading on March 9, 2019 at California State University,  Fresno which is hosting the annual California State University Symposium on Teaching and Learning. A recording of the presentation will also be posted at my YouTube channel.

I have recently written on the use of the Stealth Zoom tool in the ExplainEverything app to create dynamic presentations with animation. The basic idea is that only part of the ExplainEverything digital whiteboard (which I'll call the "active area") on a mobile device screen is projected via video to an audience. Every digital object (text, photo, etc.) located on what other programs would call the pasteboard (the area outside of the working area) is visible and able to be manipulated by the presenter, but the audience doesn't see this. Thus, as the presenter drags an object from the pasteboard into the active area, the projection shows the object appearing from the edge of the screen. Objects can be moved by the presenter, and these motions are projected in real time, which can give the impression of a basic animation. My video tutorial here demonstrates this process.

My initial ExplainEverything presentation file

Today, I'm sharing more "best practices" for using ExplainEverything to conduct improv presentations, where graphic elements (photos, cartoons, drawings, graphs and charts, etc.) are added to a presentation depending on the direction that a conversation or classroom session goes, based on audience (or student) questions and comments. Above, you can see the ExplainEverything presentation I am using in my workshop: the white area in the center is the region that is projected to the audience. So, when I navigate to this slide in the presentation, the audience will initially see a plain white slide. Depending on what has happened previously in the workshop, I'll add one or a few graphics by dragging them into the white area.

Here's the genius part: my entire presentation will be based on just this one slide (and its surrounding pasteboard, to which I've already added all of the images I think I might need). So, if I need to call on a graphic, I don't have to spend time adding it from my Camera Roll (or from Google Drive, etc.), which takes a few "clicks" and thus can cause a brief but unnecessary disruption in presentation (see below image, which is a screen shot of part of the process of adding an existing image from my Camera Roll). In sum: I spend time before the presentation importing all of the graphics that I might use, so that the actual live presentation runs more efficiently.

Part of the process of adding existing photos from my Camera Roll

As a brief aside: for those of you who prefer not to pre-load graphics, as I did above, I suggest creating a new photo album (folder) to house only the images that you intend to use during your presentation. That way, when you are selecting an image to add (the process of which is projected to the audience), they only see all the thumbnails of images you want them to see (e.g. not also personal photographs of the family members at your cousin's birthday dinner last weekend).

The Album I created to contain only graphics to be used in my presentation

The other "Best Practice" I want to share today is how to leverage the graphic content of the pasteboard across your entire presentation. As I mentioned, the pasteboard (see below image) contains all of the graphics I think I will want to use in my entire half-hour workshop. I won't use all of these images on a single slide, but at the same time, I'm not sure in advance which combinations of graphics I might want to put together on a slide. That's the blessing and the curse of improv presentations!

Dealing with this issue is simple in ExplainEverything: instead of pre-making a series of slides with different pasteboard content, I just load all of the graphics I think I will use, and then I just duplicate that slide (which also duplicates the entire pasteboard) every time I want to add a new slide to the presentation. There's just one trick here: if I load the white (active) area of the slide below with some of my graphics at the start of my presentation, and then I duplicate the slide when I want to move on, then I wind up having a slide that already has content on it! So, here's the workaround: before you present, make a duplicate of your blank slide + all of the pasteboard content. This will become your "template" (untouched) slide for future use.

First, here's how to duplicate your slide. Select the slide button in the lower-right corner of the screen:

Step 1 of slide duplication

Then select the slide you want to duplicate (the slide icon will color, and a check-mark will appear) and the select the x2 button just to the top-left of the slide icon:

Step 2 of slide duplication

and now you have two copies of your blank slide + pasteboard content:

The final step of slide duplication

Now, the presentation proceeds thus: you start the presentation on the first slide, adding graphics as necessary using Stealth Zoom. Then, when you're ready for a new slide, you advance to the second slide. Now, before you start using the second slide, make a duplicate of it (generating slide 3)! Then you continue your presentation on slide 2 - with the new slide 3, still blank, being your new template for additional use. Continue making duplicates of your last (template) slide as needed, so that you always have one clean version of your original slide.

Of course, you could make lots of duplicate blank slides before you start a presentation, and that works just fine - as long as you have a good idea of how many slides you think you'll need! But that sort of diminishes the purpose of conducting an improv presentation, doesn't it?