LEARNING MODULE SURIGAO STATE COLLEGE OF TECHNOLOGY

MODULE 5: Communication Aids and Strategies Using Tools of Technology

5.1 Creation of Multimodal Texts
5.2 Production of Multimodal Texts
5.3 The Art of Making PowerPoint Presentation

: 6 hrs.

INTRODUCTION:

Whatever your field and whatever your job, making meaning and presenting them to the
right audience are things that you need to pull through to succeed as an individual, a
student, a professional, or an entrepreneur.

These presentations, whether spoken or written and formal or informal, have become so
common that they are performed at an astonishing number of ―33 million times a day‖ (Adler,
Elmhorst, & Lucas, 2013). At present, creating and sharing them have even changed
dramatically because of the development of digital communication technologies. Simple and
easy-to –use media production tools and resources, along with the potential for immediate
and universal online publication, are now also readily accessible on the World Wide Web.

INTENDED LEARNING OUTCOMES: In this lesson, the students will lead to:

1. Express their own thoughts on the topics concerning Multimodal Text ;

2. Create own multimodal texts.

PRE – ASSESSMENT:

1. What is multimodal?

2. Do you think it is really much easier

for students to create and produce
texts nowadays?

3. What is the importance of

PowerPoint when you present
information?

LEARNING ACTIVITIES

Let's Communicate

CREATION AND PRODUCTION OF MULTIMODAL TEXTS

Although multimodal texts are often associated with digital communication

technologies, multimodal texts are not synonymous with digital. Their creation can be of any
medium: paper – such as books, comics, posters: digital – from slide presentations, e-
books, blogs, e-posters, web pages, and social media, to animation film, and video games:

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live – like a performance or an event; or transmedia – where the story is narrated using
―multiple delivery channels‖ by means of a combination of media platforms, for instance,
books, comics, magazine, film, web series, and video game mediums all working as part of
the same story (O’Brien, 2017).

Transmedia, a highly contested term, is ―what the word parts suggest it might be: a
merging of media form, here the digital with the narrative, but with the multiple platforms a
part of the narrative‖ (Heick, 2018). To understand the term better, Henry Jenkins (2011)
says that:

―Transmedia is more than just multiple media platforms. It is about the logical
relations between these media extensions, which seek to add something to the story as it
moves from one medium to another, not just adaptation or retelling. Transmedia enables the
further development of the story world through each new medium; for example offering a
back story, a prequel, additional ‘episodes’, or further insight into characters and plot
elements. It also can require a more complex production process.

Glee is an example of a transmedia narrative in which the audience follows the

characters and situations across media, but more often, its transmedia strategies focus on
the transmedia performance, with the songs moving though YouTube, iTunes, live
performances, and so on, which the audience reads ageist each other to make sense of the
larger Glee phenomenon.

As freshman college students, you are expected to develop the ability to produce and
submit all kinds of texts, including multimodal texts. With the current technological
developments, you can accomplish the task of creating whatever kind of multimodal text is
assigned to you that befits your chosen field without us much difficulty as it used to be.

The text you make is a literacy object because it displays your ability to express
meaning. In the past, literacy was understood to refer only to the ability to read and write
texts; at present, however, literacy includes making meaning by using varied texts are
available through the highly accessible information and multimedia technologies. You
construct meaning by creating your own expression of that meaning or idea. This kind of
expression empowers you because you are able not only to understand the idea but also to
talk about it.

When doing the class activity of devising multimodal texts, it is normal for you (and
the members of your group) to use your own voices to create the soundtrack, to apply
transitions between images to bring about movement, and to employ appropriate music to
liven up the text. But this is not the only way to do this activity. Another technique is to collect
material for the voiceover, as well as the images you are going to use, from sites on the
Internet, like Facebook, Google, blogs and vlogs, Twitter, Spotify, iTunes, and YouTube. You
can use whatever free web stuff you find to mix image, sound, and text. Take the elements
you understand, elements that will become your language to construct your meaning – your
message, your text.

This method of gathering materials is merely coping (or cutting) and pasting, but
during this process of collecting the materials you need to adapt and rearrange (or remix) the
materials to suit your own purpose of creating the multimodal text. What you do, therefore,
could not be just ―copying/cutting and pasting‖ in its traditional sense, but what Ryberg
(2007) has identified as ―Patchworking‖ in his dissertation (as cited in Godhe, 2014).

You do ―Patchworking‖ when you exploit certain threads in the materials you have
gathered from various sources and stitch these together to create your own ―patchwork‖ and
your own particular understanding of the materials. In other words, you re-contextualize (or
place in a different context) the materials you have collected from various sites to serve your

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own purpose of presenting them in a multimodal text in a multimodal text in a classroom

setting, and there is nothing anomalous about this. If you use this Patchworking, however,
be sure to acknowledge all your sources or you will be guilty of plagiarism.

Plagiarism is the act of stealing and passing off as you own the ideas, words, or any
other intellectual property produced by another person. For example, if you use another
person’s words in a research paper without citing your source, you commit an act of
plagiarism.

Production of Multimodal Texts

Preparing multimodal texts in a classroom provides for new practices of reading,

producing, and disseminating texts (Jewit, 2005). This means that you also apply in your
creation of your class-assigned multimodal texts whatever literacy practices that you do at
home or outside of the classroom environment (such as using computers and any other
technical devices—mobile phones and tables—to communicate and interact with others,
reading e-books, watching film clips on YouTube, listening and downloading music on
Spotify, and producing home-made short films/videos on the Internet).

To effectively design and communicate meaning though such rich and potentially
complex sources of materials, you have to extend your multimodal literacy knowledge and
skills. A quality multimodal composition requires new literacy design skills and knowledge
that will enable you to make informed choices within and across the available
communication modes and effectively construct meaning out of them.

To create a digital animation, for example, which is a complex-meaning design

process, you are required to do a critical arrangement of a combination of ―modes‖ (such as
image, movement, sound, spatial design, gesture, and language). The process of
constructing such a text is a ―cross-disciplinary literacy process‖ because it involves the use
of both digital information technologies and the arts (media, music, drama, visual, arts, and
design) to bring meaning to life (O’Brien, 2017).

A. Recall one instance when you were made to prepare and submit a written text
or to make and present an oral one.

A. What preparation did you make?

B. Did you need to collect materials for the

project?

C. How did you put these materilas together

for a comprehensive whole? What did you
do before the submission or presentation?

D. What difficulties did you encounter?

E. Did you properly acknowledge the sources

of your data?

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LEARNING MODULE SURIGAO STATE COLLEGE OF TECHNOLOGY

The Art of Making PowerPoint Presentation

PowerPoint presentations
are so common that lecturers and
reporters use them all the time.

A presentation is like
taking your audience from one
place to another, so make the
journey lighter and more fun by
never overloading it with too much
content. How may you do this?
There are only three things that
you need to do before starting to
your Power Point presentation.

https://www.bing.com/images/search?view

1. Determine your goal.

This is about you and your goal, which should be an achievable
challenge. Ask yourself what opinion or feeling of the audience you want to
change. (For example, I want them to understand…, I want them to buy…,
and so on.)

2. Convert your goal into one “big idea.”

This is now about your audience and your planting an idea into their
heads. Make them embrace the idea so that they can act by moving toward
your desired goal. Make them understand how they can benefit from the idea,
and lead them to believe in what you say, not in what you want. It is all about
them, not you.

3. Consolidate your idea into just three concepts.

For the audience to reach the place where you want them to go – to
embrace your idea – go straight to the 1st point, 2nd point, 3rd point to
the point where you want them to go and embrace it.

Afterward, as you go about creating your presentation, optimize your ―PowerPoint

science‖ by bearing in mind five design principles that can help make the structure of your
slides clear (Philips, 2014).

1. Outline first to control the number of slides and to provide balance. Allot 2 to 3
minutes per slide (for example, a 30 minute talk may utilize 10-15 slides). Decide on
only one story to tell or one underlying issue to address, Divide it into logical,
hierarchical questions and sub-questions, and make your talk a series of answers to
these questions. Zoom-in your introduction; zoom-out your closure.

2. Have only one message per slide to allow the audience to understand it more.
If you have many sentences on the slide, and you persist on speaking at the same
time, the audience will not be able to remember anything at all, and your effort will be
useless. Enhance your presentation material by having just one short text and/or one
image on a slide.

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3. Pay attention to size. The most important point of your PowerPoint should be the
biggest, so reduce the size of the title, and make the size of the content bigger since
the content is more important than the title.

4. Apply the principle of contrast. Contrast controls your focus, so use a built-in
functionality on the PowerPoint that dims or darkens the rest of the items and
highlights only the item on the list that is being discussed, once at a time. You can do
this when presenting a table; use contrast to focus on each item being discussed so
that the audience can direct their attention to that item alone and avoid having their
eyes all over the place not knowing what to focus on. Change the bright white
background to a dark one, too, so the focus is on the text alone.

5. Limit the number of objects/items per slide. The magical number is six. You can
have less than six but no more. This means having more slides. The number of
slides for one PowerPoint presentation is never the problem. There should not be
any limit to the number of slides. If the number of slides is limited, the result is
counterproductive – jamming too many objects/items per slide.

Now you are ready; you feel more confident to stand before the audience and make
your presentation. Do not make a mess of it by getting your audience bored and
putting them to sleep. PLEASE do the following (NanoNerds, 2012).

1. Come prepared.
2. Get the set-up right.
3. Know your audience and adjust the content accordingly.
4. Go easy on fonts.
5. Go easy on logos.
6. Go easy on colors.
7. Make eye contact.
8. Be kind to questioners.
9. Be kind to folks in the back.
10. Design slides for distance.
11. Cell phone off.
12. Do not go crazy with the laser pointer.
13. Do not cram too much on each slide.
14. Do not read from your notes or slides.
15. Do not spew jargon.
16. Do not demean audience members.
17. Do not turn your back.

B. Pretend that you are promoting a product of a particular company. Prepare a

PowerPoint presentation of your promotion and print in a short bond paper.

Criteria:
Clarity of message – 30 pts.
Appropriateness of font style, colors, &design – 20 pts.
Total – 50 pts.

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SELF- EVALUATION

Come-up a poster on how technology may give impact to communication. Use short bond
paper.

Criteria:
Clarity of message – 30 pts.
Appropriateness of colors, & design – 20 pts.
Total – 50 pts.

POST-TEST: Write on the blank before each number the letter of the item in Column B that
corresponds with the item in Column A.

___ 1. digital A. perking up texts

___ 2. patchworking B. using videos
___ 3. plagiarism C. video games
___ 4. soundtrack D. re-contextualizing
___ 5. vlog E. stealing ideas
___ 6. too much content F. problem
___ 7. important point G. immaterial
___ 8. use of contrast H. biggest
___ 9. number of items I. heavy presentation
___ 10. number of slides J. item highlighting

REFERENCES

1. Padilla, M. et.al (2018). Communicate & Connect! Purposive Communication. Mutya

Publishing House, Inc., Manila, Philippines
2. Chase, R. & Shams, S. (2013). Elements of effective communication. 4th ed.
3. Uychoco, M. & Santos, M. (2018). Communication for Society: Purposive
Communication.1st Ed.
4. https://www.healthknowledge.org.uk/public-health-textbook/organisation-
management/5a-understanding-itd/effective-communication

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