Saturday, July 14, 2012

What Was That Website?: The Links Page

From freedigitalphotos.net
While giving a presentation last week someone remarked that it would have been nice if I had listed all the websites that I referred to on the handout. That's a fair comment, but here's my dilemma. Oftentimes, speakers are asked to turn in handouts weeks and even months before a presentation. I know that at least for me, I am constantly adding to  presentations, sometimes up to the last minute. And in that tweaking I find new resources that I want to share. So then there's the decision, do I share only what's on the handout or do I provide all the tools that I think are useful to an audience? Because I want to leave participants with tools they can use,  I present what I have just discovered. My belief is that the handout is to augment the presentation. For me it's not a transcript of everything I will be presenting.

Also, because I think it's easier to click on a link rather than retype a website address I decided to go ahead and create a Links page on my blog. Does this page include every website I will ever mention in a presentation? No. But it does have the ones that I speak about in the majority of my presentations. I will be adding new links as I find them so this is not a "static" resource.

The Links page is here. It also can be found by clicking on the Links tab at the top of this blog.

5 comments:

Susan Clark said...

That's a great solution, Gena. One that meets both your needs as a presenter and our needs as the presentees wanting every last bit of information you've shared. Thank you!

Unknown said...

I have JUST this moment come from the end of the annual conferences of MoSGA (Missouri State Genealogical Association); we have 5 great presenters; all sessions had great handouts; all 5 ran into the type of thing you mentioned. (There are also the sites mentioned from the audience).

I think this is a pefectly WONDERFUL idea (as Susan Clark said); and I hope others follow your example.

Gena Philibert-Ortega said...

Thanks Susan for your comment.

I think it makes it easier for audiences to go to a blog and click the links. I always wonder if audiences try out all the great websites on a handout, this helps to make it a little more interactive without publishing the whole handout online.

Gena Philibert-Ortega said...

Hi Sue! Thanks for your comments.

There's is actually another California genealogist, Barbara Renick at Zroots < http://www.zroots.com/> who has a links page and she encourages audiences to make it their homepage so they always have the links there. So that's another idea presenters might want to consider.

Unknown said...

Gena, that's a great idea. As a presenter, I always try to make sure the links I include in a handout are still active. As a result I end up having to check the links each time I am preparing to give a presentation; having a links page would be so much more efficient I think.

Denise