Re: Useful slide tex (was - Re: English spoken here)

[Keith Moore <[e-mail]>]

On 12/02/2012 01:46 PM, joel jaeggli wrote:
> We have non-native english speakers and remote participants both 
> working at a disadvantage to follow the discussion in the room. We 
> should make it harder for them by removing the pretext that the 
> discussion is structured around material that they can review and 
> follow along on? I don't think that's even remotely helpful.

In general, the purpose of those meetings is *discussion*, not 
presentation.   I'm all for exploring better ways to facilitate 
*discussion* among the diversity of IETF meeting attendees.  But our 
experience with use of previously-prepared PowerPoint presentations to 
facilitate *discussion* shows that use of that tool, in that way and for 
that purpose, is a miserable failure.

Of course I'd encourage speakers to make available for download 
summaries of the material to be discussed in advance of the meeting, for 
the benefit of non-native English speakers and others. PowerPoint (or 
better, PDF of material prepared in PowerPoint) seems like a reasonable 
format for that.

I also think it would be quite helpful to arrange for the topics 
discussed and points raised in the discussion to be displayed in the 
room in real time, as they are typed.   This would provide non-native 
speakers with visuals similar to what they see now with PowerPoint, but 
without the undesirable side-effect of coercing discussion time into 
presentations.   This would also reinforce the need for a minute-taker 
and help to keep the minute-takers honest.

(I doubt that PowerPoint is the best tool for this purpose, since it 
would be highly desirable to convey the same information, at the same 
time, to remote participants.)

Keith