Professional Presentation
The presentation on Designing Accessible Online Learning Experiences was an assignment that was designed and developed for EDET 735 as part of the Learning Design and Technologies program at the University of South Carolina. The presentation was presented at a conference in late Spring of 2026 for an effective time management workshop for seniors at Brooklyn Cayce (BC) High School, in West Columbia, South Carolina, who are going off to college in the Fall of 2026. The goal of this assignment was to design a PowerPoint presentation and a website focused on a topic that we chose and connect it to accessibility and universal learning design (UDL). Additionally, the goal was to create a PowerPoint with the intention of including accessibility for all learners to access. The presentation was broken down into several parts, such as the analysis of learners needing accessibility implements, learning objectives, and multimedia to enhance learning through the means of multimodal.
When reflecting on this project, there are a lot of things that I would have done differently when presenting in front of high schoolers. One of the biggest lessons that I learned from this experience was focusing on incorporating Cognitive Load Theory (CLT) into my Microsoft PowerPoint. I noticed many slides in my presentation had a lot of text, which did not seem to interest them when I was presenting the material to them. By incorporating the Cognitive Load Theory, I could have relied on a balance of various means of multimedia, such as audio, images, and text. By incorporating various multimedia, the information on the PowerPoint would not have overwhelmed them as much, and would have allowed them to comprehend the information effectively.
Additionally, the presentation taught me how important it is to know your audience. Seniors in high school are a difficult group of students to work with because many of them have their minds set on their path already. So at this presentation, I had to create an informative presentation on how to use time management skills effectively in college. So while I was trying to inform the students about the importance of time management, I also had to present the information as a sales pitch. Presenting the information as just facts would be boring to anyone. So by knowing my audience, I was able to create real-life scenarios of how incorporating time management skills into their lives would benefit them. This allowed the students to connect one-on-one, which allowed them to connect the information back to their personal lives and how to apply it to their daily schedules.
The final lesson I learned from this presentation is the importance of accessibility, following the universal learning design (UDL) framework, and creating equal opportunities for all learners to gain information on time management skills. This is a crucial part that instructional designers and I personally need to be more intentional about. By knowing my audience, I was able to develop a presentation that utilized Multimodal learning to improve engagement and make it accessible to all learners. By incorporating multiple means of representation, engagement, and action from the learners, a variety of learners were able to access and gather the information from the presentation with no barriers in their learning experience.
Overall, I think the presentation went well. I was nervous because I had never done an informative presentation in front of high school students with this type of topic. Additionally, I was nervous that I would fumble over my speech or that my anxiety would get the best of me, which would negatively impact my performance of presenting to the students. I do wish I could have created and implemented a QR code that allowed the learners to tell what they already knew about effective time management skills before my presentation, and then ask them to take a post-survey after the presentation. By providing this data, I would be able to identify strengths and weaknesses in my presentation that I could improve for future conferences and presentations.
