Writing Descriptions for OEIT Gallery/Presentation Summaries

Ok, so I’m using this post to describe the process I went through to use a recent presentation as an example of how OEIT could highlight a recent presentation on its website. And I’ll use it as a means of demonstrating the type of writing that I think the OEIT website needs to have.

If I was just writing about this topic for my blog, I would probably start off with something like…

Original for a “blog post”:

Jeff Merriman and I presented to 120 K-12 teachers, administrators and instructional technologists on MIT OpenCourseWare and Highlights for High School, Visualizing Cultures, and STAR on May 28, 2009.

Ok, what information did I include there or should I have included? (So this is just journalism 101.) The 5 Ws (Who, What, Where, When, Why) and How. But is that really the best order?

Cut to what I think we should be doing on the OEIT website. I think we should have an image or collage of images from the event, coupled with a teaser to get readers to read on. So, instead of the sentence above, I might write…

Modified as a “teaser”:

Share Fair keynote highlights educational innovation at MIT for 120 K-12 teachers, administrators and instructional technologists. Innovations highlighted by Jeff Merriman and Brandon Muramatsu on May 28, 2009 were MIT OpenCourseWare and Highlights for High School, Visualizing Cultures, and STAR.

The first sentence is the key, and its written so that even if it gets truncated the major points are still there. The intent is to try and get the reader to want to follow the link to the presentation.

This is not to say that sentence is perfect, but it’s better. For example, I’m not sure I like the use of the word “Innovation” to lead off the second sentence, but it does highlight the fact that we talked about “innovation” (you could, of course argue that :P ).

On the OEIT website, I’d probably have another paragraph or two of text and I’d embed the presentation we gave that night. In this case it’s a slidecast (slideshow plus voiceover).

Since I think the presentation turned out well, I’m including it here also. :)