Margaret and I are on tenterhooks this morning! In part, that’s due to Margaret giving a lecture to Doug Gay’s “Political Theology” course; she’s talking to them about “The Church as Polis” in the work of John Howard Yoder, Stan Hauerwas, and Bill Cavanaugh. Since this is a two-hour presentation of the topic that she used to teach as a full-semester course at Loyola, she has no lack of material to discuss with the class. She’s also put together a Prezi presentation that rocks. I’m a Keynote user by disposition, but I steered Margaret to Prezi in the interest of making sure that the presentation could be edited at home on her MacBook and at work on her Dell, would be saved to the cloud so as not to be at risk of unavailability or corruption, and would run directly on the Dell in the classroom in which she’s lecturing. Though it took some banging away for her to get used to the interface and editing tools, the presentation itself is excellent (Prezi could use some refinements on the editing side; Margaret had a few painful frustrations). The class is meeting now as I type; I’m eager to hear at the break how things are going.
Then tonight, we’re heading down to the city centre to hear a lecture by Nicholas Lash, a theological hero of mine whom I’ve never met or heard before. I’ll probably bring along the copy of Theology on the Way to Emmaus for him to autograph, the copy that I bought back when I was in Hauerwas’s theology seminar and Lash’s books were not readily available in the US. I’ve read and reread his essays since those days, and I always find them a source of inspiration and provocation. I will, however, not wave a lighter in the air and yell for him to read one of my favourite essays as an encore.
Can’t wait to hear how Margaret’s presentation went!
I *love* your Wednesday!
thanks for the heads up on Prezi.. looks like a very nice tool!
Margaret’s presentation was excellent! I really enjoyed it and found her explanation of ‘The Church as Polis’ really easy to understand 🙂 it was very nice to leave class with a clear idea of what was being discussed. I’m also glad you named prezi after finding it very snazzy in class and not knowing what it was! Lastly, I am even more gutted that I can’t make Nicholas lash’s seminar tonight after your sterling review of him – be sure to fill me in on Friday!
Have you tried Sliderocket.com yet ? – quite like Keynote, but web based as well.
Whilst Prezi can be good in practiced hands, I found the way things whizzed around quite nauseating at times and gave up after the initial buzz a year ago 🙁
Prezi was new to me as well…thanks for the heads up, I’m having terrible fun with it already.