BTW, just to show I'm not completely against powerpoint, I've recently uploaded all the power point presentations I could find at :
http://www.slideshare.net/duluthted These are slides from conference and invited talks over the last few years, and they are not especially well organized or explained on this site, although I'm going to work on cleaning this up and making it more complete. I will also keep it updated with future presentations too - while I tend to be very careful about cataloging and keeping track of my papers, I'm very careless with my powerpoint slides (they get scattered from one system to another and then lost) so this will hopefully help me organize things a bit better. Why do I use powerpoint at conferences and invited talks and not in my classes? Part of it is cultural I suppose - *everyone* at conferences uses powerpoint, and invited speakers *always* use powerpoint, and so I guess I'm not brave enough to dispense with that (yet). In addition, the setting is very different - in a conference you get 5 or 20 minutes to talk, and it is meant to be very formal and non-interactive (until the end, where you might have a few questions). In an invited talk you get more like an hour, but often that's in the setting of a conference or workshop where everyone is pretty much in that same mode of listening attentively and saving questions til the end... To be honest, having sat through what must be weeks or months worth of powerpoint presentations at conferences, I'm not convinced it's the best way to deliver that kind of message to that kind of audience. I don't know that I have a better option, but it's something I usually end up thinking about after the 13th powerpoint presentation of the day. I am sure that others think the same of my powerpoint presentations, so I make them available at the site above to avoid creating the impression that I somehow have a better way to do all this kind of stuff - I clearly don't. :) Enjoy, Ted On Mon, Dec 28, 2009 at 5:18 PM, Ted Pedersen <[email protected]> wrote: > I ran across the following article, and find that I generally agree > with the idea of "teaching naked" (except that I really hate this > catch phrase because it's too cute by half and not something I could > ever actually say out loud for fear of the snickers it would draw). > But, beyond the horrible catch phrase, the idea is pretty simple - > don't use computers in the classroom - professors should avoid the > canned powerpoint lectures that seem to be increasingly common, and > students should stop automatically opening laptops and retreating into > their own little world as soon as they enter a classroom... > > http://chronicle.com/article/Teach-Naked-Effort-Strips/47398/ > > I don't actually think powerpoint by itself is the end of the world, > but it tends to promote a kind of bad behavior in professors - many > text books now come with power point slides already prepared (and this > is a big part of promoting the text, making it clear that these are > available for download as "instructor resources"). I'm certain that > some instructors choose text books based on the availability of these > slides (and would not choose a text that didn't offer this). A > professor of this sort then gets the slides and thinks "ah, my lecture > prep is done" and proceeds to go into the classroom and improvise > their way through slides - making up content as they go along through > the slides (especially as they read them for the first time in front > of the class). These are the worst sort of lectures in that they > mirror the textbook and therefore provide no additional information, > and they also tend to be very dull because the professor isn't > especially well prepared and spends a fair bit of time staring at each > slide and saying "well, let's see, in this slide it says that...". > When a professor has gone to the trouble of preparing their own > slides, usually they result in pretty decent lectures because the > professor knows what's in the slides and has put that info there for a > reason. This is true until the 4th or 5th time the slides are used, at > which point they become painfully dull to both deliver and to listen > to. > > I have in fact sworn off the use of powerpoint in classroom lectures, > and this is a direct result of the sabbatical I took in 2006-2007. I > got the idea from "Reading Lolita in Tehran", which is a wonderful > book that I think everyone should read, especially if you are at all > interested in teaching or learning. I happened to read that during my > sabbatical, along with some Wittgenstein and a few other things. Fair > to say Reading Lolita had the biggest impact (sorry Ludwig). There is > nothing in the book that says "don't use powerpoint", but if you've > ever read the book you can probably understand that lectures given in > the powerpoint style just wouldn't have worked at all, and that the > teaching that you see done in that book really is pretty extraordinary > and something to aspire to. So, if you are looking for a New Year's > Resolution for 2010, consider Reading Lolita in Tehran - available at > Amazon and no doubt most public or university libraries (was a big > best seller a few years back). > > http://www.amazon.com/Reading-Lolita-Tehran-Memoir-Books/dp/081297106X > > Now, that's about powerpoint and professors - the other side of the > coin is students and laptops. I am fortunate in that my classes are > small enough where I don't find myself stopping for breath only to > hear the "clatter clat clat" of one hundred keyboards being pounded on > - and yes, everyone says they use them for taking notes but of course > that's mostly a lie. :) It's chatting, it's mindless checking of > email, it's social networking, it's all sorts of crap that is entirely > appropriate during a really boring powerpoint lecture, but really > doesn't fit in when a class is somewhat more interactive. So, I do > think there's some shared responsibility for creating a good > atmosphere in a classroom, and both "sides" can do things that really > turn off the other and make it all real drudgery - imagine trying to > give a lecture to a group of students more interested in Facebook or > whatever... > > My own feeling is that powerpoint slides can be pretty useful as very > short versions of textbooks or study guides, and should be used > outside of class time (if at all). Make them available, have students > review when and if they want (sort of like how textbook reading is > done (or not)). One of my least favorite developments in teaching is > the professor going to youtube and firing up a video for the students > to watch during lecture time. There is something horribly perverse > about that (in that it would be so easy to have students do that > outside of class time). It's the 21st century version of the professor > standing in front of the class reading from the textbook for a whole > period. The nice thing about technology, I think, is that it actually > makes it possible to do an incredible amount outside of class time, > and that's where I try and use it myself (via my now ubiquitous and > possibly infamous google groups and yes, I do assign lectures from > youtube but students watch them on their own time since I *think* most > have access to the internet). > > And so now I do try and carry on more discussion and do less repeating > of what's in the textbook, and sometimes that works and sometimes it > doesn't, and it still does puzzle some students who seem very anxious > to define the limits of what will be on a test to the intersection of > what is in the text and what we discuss in class - I foil them by > telling them it's not the intersection but rather the union. :) > > In any case, no powerpoint slides last semester, and in fact I don't > think I turned on the computer in the classroom one time. That's my > plan for 2010 too. > > Happy New Year, > Ted > > -- > Ted Pedersen > http://www.d.umn.edu/~tpederse > -- Ted Pedersen http://www.d.umn.edu/~tpederse
