How to Prepare a Lecture for Wheelchair University

You are invited to submit a lecture to Wheelchair University. This WWW-based lecture series is designed to provide a practical learning experience in applying wheelchair technology to the needs of wheelchair users. The intended audience is people new to the field of seating and wheeled mobility from around the world. This includes rehabilitation-related students, non-expert practitioners and people who use wheelchairs, and third party funders.

Our goal is to have a consistent format across lectures to enhance the learning experience and simplify the learning curve. Please submit your presentation in Microsoft PowerPoint. Create your PowerPoint presentations in outline view, which is a text format. That will allow your presentation to read by persons using screen readers. Include lecture notes (the essence of what you would have spoken to the audience). All graphics and tables must have a text description, to make them accessible to persons with visual impairment. Include your text description in the notes view of the page containing the graphic or table.

Your presentation will be posted on Wheelchair University in two views: as an Adobe .PDF file (Portable Document Format) using the slide and notes views of your PowerPoint presentation and as an .html file using the outline and/or notes views of your PowerPoint presentation.

We have created a PowerPoint template for you to download and use. You can either use it to create your lecture or you can import it as a style to modify the appearance of an existing lecture. (You are also welcome to use your own background and follow template guidelines below). The template includes:

Font: Verdana, a font developed by Microsoft for greatest readability on the computer screen, (If you use Microsoft applications Verdana should be an available font on your computer. If you do not have Verdana on your computer, you can download it to your operating system from http://www.microsoft.com/msdownload/. Look for "TrueType fonts on the Web" and choose Windows or Macintosh versions.)

Font size: 36-point Verdana font for the title box and 28-point Verdana font for the body of the slide.

Background/Font Color: The template provides the correct untextured gray background and burgundy text color.
The template also includes the following slides:

1. Slide One: Title Page
Title of lecture, author name, position, Institution (if desired), date, contact information (email plus WWW home page, if possible).

2. Slide Two: Title, Abstract and Author Bio-Sketch
Provide a brief abstract of topic, an author big-sketch and your picture. (We can scan one for you if you need help with this.)

3. Slide Three: Learning Objectives
A stated set of learning objectives. They should answer the question: What information will the student learn as a result of having done the lecture?

4. Slide Four: Performance Objectives (optional)
A stated set of performance objectives (bullet list preferred). They should answer the question: By the end of the course how should the student be able to use or what should they be able to do with the information?

5. Body of the Lecture:
Insert the body of your lecture here. It should use the following guidelines:

Lecture Notes: The most important thing to realize is that slides do not teach or inform by themselves. They need more words to fill in the ideas that you would have spoken if you were presenting the slide lecture in person. This means that you need to open the "notes view" of PowerPoint and write words you would have spoken underneath each slide. The notes will be presented below the slide and expand on the concept contained in the slide. Notes of 100 words or less are preferred. Any abbreviations in the slide should be spelled out here. Notes are not required if the slide content is sufficiently self-explanatory.
Total lines: Generally, less than 9 lines of text per slide.

Tables/Graphs: If importing a table or graph into the slide, use 14 point Verdana as the font and avoid Italics. Hyperlinks from within a slide or a note: If appropriate, create a hyperlink or give the WWW addresses for related information in your slides or notes. (This is only a feature in new versions of PowerPoint.) This helps to extend the learning and links the student to other resources on the WWW. The number of slides: A good size is 20-30 slides.

6. Review questions:
Following your lecture, create 3-5 review questions, depending on the length of the lecture, and add them to the end of the lecture to allow the student to conduct a self-test related to your learning objectives.

7. Recommended Readings: Add hyperlinks to WWW resources or other readings that you recommend for students wishing to seek additional information on the lecture topic.

8. Other
Your name will be listed in the contributor's section as well as on the title page of your lecture. As long as the RERC manages the WWW site, we will do our best to respond to your requests for revisions to your lecture.

Who to contact with questions: Joseph Ruffing

How to send your lecture to us: When you have completed your presentation, attach it to an email message and send it to: Joseph Ruffing. We will do the rest. It will be posted as a presentation in Wheelchair University, a virtual university that is part of WheelchairNet: http://www.wheelchairnet.org/WCN_WCU/wcu.html.

Last Updated: March 22, 2002