Studying Online;Succeeding through Distance Learning at University

160 Studying online 
face-to-face. As a result, you need to build interactivity into your 
presentation, for example, by creating a poll or a chat-based exer-
cise. Tose elements of interactivity need preparation as they do 
not happen spontaneously. Hence you need more time to prepare 
your online presentations. 
Another part of the planning and preparation that is required for 
online presentations, but not face-to-face ones, is knowing what 
you can and cannot do with the software. Also, you may need to 
fnd add-ons and extensions to achieve particular elements. For 
example, if you are using Microsoft Teams and want to run a poll, 
it is not built directly into the program. You need to use one of the 
available add-ons to include a poll. Tat means you need to select 
one of the available options, install it, and test it for suitability. 
Tis all adds time to preparing your work. 
QUICK TIP: Make sure you understand the features available in 
your video call software so that you can make the best possible 
presentation. 
Tere is another issue with online presentations that does not 
afect face-to-face presentations to the same extent. In a face-to-
face presentation, people can more easily look away from your 
slides. Tey can look at you, for example. Tey can also look at 
each other. In other words, they do not have to constantly stare 
at your slides. Tis means that if you keep the same slide visi-
ble for a few minutes, it does not matter too much. However, 
online when a slide is shown for too long, it becomes tedious 
and distracting. People probably cannot look at you when you 
are screen sharing. It does depend on the software being used, 
but mostly your image is reduced to a much smaller size so that 
people can focus on the presentation slides themselves. If you 
are chatting away and the slides have been on screen for several 
minutes, people will disconnect from what you are saying. For 
an online presentation, you need many more slides than for the 
same presentation face-to-face. You need to be changing the vi-
suals frequently. Consider a drama TV programme you like or a 

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