A nice rant against powerpoint

[f4f3]

This:

http://www.greg-brooks.com/000005.html

and the link to a Wired article, say a lot about what I hate most about Powerpoint. I'm in the middle of responding to a request for a FIVE HOUR presentation, and fighting to get it made into a workshop instead. The attitude seems to be that you must use PP and you must have lots and lots and lots of slides.

Comments

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

I'm a graduate from a course where lectures were very informationally dense - I'd say chalk and talk, except there wasn't a lot of chalking - and we were expected to research out from that. I don't think Powerpoint is the right medium for getting a lot of info across - you're right when you say that you should give them something to read first (in our case a 150 page proposal). I'll be trying to turn this into a workshop.

[itchyfidget.livejournal.com]

If I'm reading you right, I think you're implying that presenting information by talking is less likely to suggest that this material is the be-all and end-all on the subject than if you present it visually. I'm not sure what I think about that (beyond saying that some people prefer to take in information in different ways, and I do believe in catering to a variety of learning styles).

I will say that even our seminars (= tutorials) have nearly entirely abandoned the assumption that students will do the reading, since when two people out of the six who turn up (from a class of 15) have done the reading and the other four haven't, it makes for such a crap learning experience all 'round (half an hour recapping the material, or reading it, in some cases; I am sufficiently pleased when students turn up to these things at all that I don't believe in sending them away) that it's not worth pursuing. I can't begin to think about what it would be like lecturing to students on the assumption that they knew a little about the area already.

I think of this as being partly due to today's conveyor-belt of young people into higher education, but also because we are a mediocre institution that does not attract many of the brightest/most motivated. The rest are accustomed, from school, to being spoonfed.