We, educational technologists, talk about engaging, interactive learning experiences yet when we come to share these experiences with colleagues at conferences we frequently revert to a lecture with PowerPoint slides. This is true of my own and many other practitioner presentations at EdTech 2009. This point was made rather well by Terry Smith in his session when he said “If we were in my class, we would be doing a project by now” and was also raised independently by two participants at the plenary session.
Personally speaking, I use PowerPoint much more at conferences than in class. My classes are practical workshops for academics in various educational technologies. Unlike a conference session, the classes have learning outcomes. They also last long enough to allow the participants to practice what they learn.
What is the aim of a conference presentation? To inform? To share findings with colleagues? To be published? Perhaps it’s just habit or a lack of imagination that prevents presenters (including me) from delivering more engaging and interactive conference presentations? Or is it in the nature of conferences? The ‘business model’ of conferences requires large numbers of presentations. Delegates may not get permission to attend unless they are presenters and presenters form a significant portion of paying delegates.
June 2nd, 2009
John Sandars of Leeds University showed how medical students are creating digital stories to help reflect on their home visits to patients. Students use images to build a story about their experiences. The images are not of the patients but symbols representing the students’ feelings and reflections on the home visit. For example, a picture of a cat could illustrate that the patient lived alone with a pet. A strength of this method is its simplicity. The stories are simply put together as images in PowerPoint.
For me, this was one of the most interesting presentations at ALT. I intend to explore its application in UCD
September 6th, 2007
PowerPoint has developed a bad reputation among educational technologists. This is largely due to the poor quality of many presentations e.g. endless pages with rows of bullet points, bland templates, an over-reliance on text and excessive use of special effects. Many novice PowerPoint users put everything they want to say on their slides (I know I once did). PPT slides should not be used as speaker notes or class handouts, they should act as visual aids for the audience, enhancing and supporting the spoken presentation. We should not blame the tool for the poor presentation.
Stephen Kosslyn, a neuroscientist from Harvard, addressed these issues in an interesting lively and well-attended presentation in UCD. His research in mental imagery and visual communication has led to the development of “The Dirty Dozen: Common PowerPoint Errors and How to Avoid Them”.
Other writers worth reading on PowerPoint usage are Donald Norman, the usability guru and Lawrence Lessig, Stanford Law Professor and ‘PowerPoint Virtuoso’.
August 28th, 2007