CCAT Visual Aid Horror

Visual Aid Horror, sometimes referred to as a game, was an event we first held July 30th, 2008. Wanting to both practice using visual aids in an educational setting, and also wanting to have some fun while doing it, we decided to have a meeting demonstrating everything that could possibly be done wrong with visual aids. We decided to intentionally misuse, abuse or confuse some long suffering props.

Since each person was trying to abuse the visual aids, having something noticed wasn't a bad thing. And if one of us managed to do something we weren't doing on purpose... well, we are much to smart to admit it. Therefore, we could have fun with props in ways we wouldn't dream of doing in regular circumstances.

Each person prepared a presentation of extended table topics duration (2 to 3 minutes long), using a visual aid, with the intention of doing everything wrong we could think of. During the presentation each person tried to notice what mistakes the presenters were demonstrating. After all the presentations we had a session of discussing what 'mistakes' we had found. The person who was able to come up with the most distinct abuses was awarded the title of "Most Horrifying". The person who was able to spot the most abuses was awarded the title of "Most horrified".

Some of the more memorable horrors included:

• The person using power point couldn't get the projector to turn on (and missed the first four speeches trying) and then couldn't get the slide to advance
• One person forgot to bring the visual aids to the lectern so asked it be passed to him, then left to get the tape, then realized the tape couldn't be started and went back for the other tape dispenser...
• The easel came some assembly required...
• One person forgot to bring a prop so 'pretended' to have a prop
• There weren't enough handouts, they were stapled together, and there was a profanity in them...