A Power Point presentation can be used for different scopes; it can be a lecture, a seminar, a game, etc. It can be displayed with an audience in a room or it can be used independently by one user. <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

Depending on these situations, the same presentation can be very good or very bad.

Power Point offer interactivity, it supports audio and video files, graphics and animations, but the winning key for me is always simplicity. Saturating a presentation with everything available is what makes a bad presentation.

The choice of colours, font, graphics, and music needs to reflect the message of the presentation.

I am more familiar with presentation in seminars or lectures. In these cases the first slide is the one that should immediately clarify the content, the tone and sometimes even the rhythm of the presentation. The following slides should articulate the content. The last slides should include conclusions, references and acknowledgements if any. The text should be short in each slide and accompanied by few graphics, colours or animations. My “meaning of life” presentation was also thought to be a seminar.

The presentation is almost ready; I only need to make few final retouches. At the end I decide to use a black background with a small green frame (it recalls biology) and the flower of anthurium is placed in a corner. I have made a full slide to explain the Ourboros and I found the perfect picture to use. It is not the normal medieval-looking symbol (there are tons in Google), it is a very special picture in which the snake is placed in the catalytic cycle of life. I have made a picture in Paint Shop Pro X to use as first slide in which I have written the title in font Scriptina, a very curly font to recall the theme of cycle in bioseiotics. The rest of the slides are written in Book Antiqua, it is not as curly as Scriptina, but it has the advantage to be present in all the computers.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

The titles of each slide are light green (another recall to biology) and the text is white. It becomes whither by clicking, I used the hightlight animation so that when the speaker changes topic, he can click and the audience can visualize the change.

Biosemiotics is a fascinating aspect of semiotics. It is not very easy to understand because merges together some aspect of theoretical biology and some definitions of semiotics. I won’t go into details in here, but obviously my presentation will be quite technical so in the class we discuss that an appropriate target group could be somebody like us. It must be somebody who has studied science but also semiotics otherwise I would need too many slides to explain also some basics (e.g. what is a sign, a symbol etc).<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

I have already started writing the main points in each slides, some sort of titles with few point to elaborate. I have found some videos of interviews of semiotics researchers and professors, but I am not sure they fit in the presentation.

At the moment I have two possible choices for the background photo to use in the presentation:

1. The flower of anthurium which is an old symbol for life and it relates well with with both biology and semiotics.

2. The Ouroboros which is a snake who create itself from its mouth and it is the symbol of biosemiology

Within the group we discussed what our meanings of lives are. We read some definitions and the bottom line is that there are several answers to that question. <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

Being a chemistry PhD student, I have a scientific background and for me life and science are definetly related.  I remembered to have read something about biosemiotics while I was studying the first lectures of this course, so probably this is an appropriate topic: the meaning of life and biosemiotics.

I believe my presentation will have something green to represent the biological aspect.

During the next week I will try to collect material upon which I will write some guidelines about the theoretical aspect.

Part 1: Intertextuality<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

 

In our time intertextuality frequently occurs in all type of media. In our group we discuss mainly about movie-radio-game-soundtrack intertextuality to deepen a story and for increasing commercial sells.

 

Part 2 - 3

 

We tried to report the facts so that they can be read as a comic or dramatic adventurous genre.

 

What - There was an accident during a fishing trip

Where - Patosjärvi

When - A cold day of September

Who - Masa and Pera

Why - they were too careless on water

How - Pera dropped in the lake while he was catching a big fish and Masa pulled him to shore and called a rescue helicopter because of threat hypothermia

 

Here is our strory:

 

Killer Fish Almost Got a Man

 

September, Patosjärvi. Two local man, Masa (34 y.) and Pera (33 y.) found themselves in great danger in the cold waters of Patosjärvi.  Pera was able to catch an amazingly big fish on his newly developed fishing rod. The fish was reported to have record weight of 13.5 kg. Unfortunately during the great fight Pera dropped in the lake due to carelessness. Masa heroically saved his mate by pulling him out of the freezing water and calling readily Sepe for the rescue.

 

I decide to change the story so that Pera would become the stereotype of a big and dumb man in his thirties, lonely and sad living still with his parents.

 

September, Patosjärvi. A local man was saved yesterday by Sepe when he accidentally fell in the cold waters of Patosjärvi. Pera (33 y.) was out fishing with his old friend Masa (34 y.). He wanted to show is buddy how cool his new fishing rod was. Pera built the rod himself from an old bow he found in the basement of the house were he lives with his parents. While trying to catch a fish, his bid body lost stability and found himself in the freezing water of the lake trapped to his own rod. Masa try to set free his big friend, but the situation was so desperate that only the arrival of Sepe could rescue Pera. 

 

 

Part4

 

We checked the programs planned to be broadcasted by YLE1 and Nelonen during week-end and workdays and grouped them into 8 cathegories: news, sport, series, movies, talk shows, fun, documentaries, and commercials. Clearly Yle1 has a different target audience than Nelonen, as documentaries and news together represent more than 57% of the whole programs, while Nelonen is directed more towards sport and fun. We found that the only similarity between the two channels is the broadcasting of program for children mainly during mornings of workdays