Cut Me Some Slack

Overview

As part of a small professional development opportunity, I was tasked to create a 10-minute presentation on an online tool that faculty could incorporate into their courses. The tool selected was Slack.

Target Audience

The presentation was intended for faculty at a continuing education college, with student demographic that consists mostly of non-traditional students that have not advanced far into academia.

My Role

• Instructional Designer
• MWorkshop Facilitator

Design and Development Process

The initial prompt was general, so my thought processes were to select a software that could create or strengthen a sense of community. Having prior experience in working for remote companies, I emulated their ability to keep their employees connected by investigating Slack as a tool. Since this tool was to be integrated into a course, I intended to highlight the benefits of using slack from both the student and the faculty perspective. My goals were as follows:

• Introduce the benefits for both populations to incentivise buy in
• Walk through the user interface to avoid a sense of being overwhelmed
• Demonstrate of creating a Slack channel to showcase the ease of use

The biggest challenge was to incorporate all this content within the 10-minute time constraint. So, the presentation was split into two sections, 7 minutes to overview the benefits and user interface, then 3 minutes to demonstrate how to use Slack in a classroom setting. The presentation attached was to be covered within those five minutes, while the demonstration covered creating a channel, how to set active and inactive statuses, and how to utilize widgets, such as polls, to enhance engagement.

Softwares

• Powerpoint
• Slack