Back from Poland May25

Back from Poland

Really I should be marking essays and exams but I sat through a day of student project presentations so I guess I deserve a rest. I had a good time at the conference in Poland. There were a few delays on the way but as I was travelling with my students, two gentlemen of middle eastern origin, I guess this is to be expected in the current times. The modern conference centre is in the grounds of a picturesque palace which is pictured below. The interior is quite nice too. But what about the talks? Well, one was so bad that I wished that I had brought a video camera. In the coming years I will be teaching our students how to give presentations and this talk was a perfect example of how to alienate an audience. The speaker gave a 55 minute talk in which used more than one slide per minute – all slides densely packed with maths naturally – and read them in a monotone, his eyes fixed to the screen except for three occasions where he looked towards us. Three times in an hour! And those times were all in the first half hour. How can anyone, especially a non-novice, believe that they can give a good talk without engaging in the audience? The conference finished on Friday and as our flight home was on Saturday evening, we went to the centre of the nearby city, Poznan. While we were there we saw a bubble festival. Not sure why they were having a bubble...