Hi As someone who agrees that note-taking is helpful for learning and as someone who definitely abuses powerpoint (just like I use to abuse overheads!) in my teaching, I would raise one caution about Chris's (and Tufte's) criticisms. Namely, there is much evidence for the benefit of concreteness and relevant images for memory in general and for the benefit of accompanying relevant images in comprehension of text and generalization from text (e.g., basic work by Allen Paivio and work on informational texts by Richard Mayer). So images per se are not bad and can in fact be good ... just not irrelevant fluff, as noted in Chris's slides.
Also I am a very data-heavy lecturer (I'm just not convinced yet that our "theories" do justice to the complexity of the results) and hence find powerpoint with corresponding handouts for students very useful for presenting figures and tables of results. And since images can easily be pasted into powerpoint, one is not particularly limited by the crudeness of powerpoint graphs and the like. Take care Jim James M. Clark Professor of Psychology 204-786-9757 204-774-4134 Fax [email protected] >>> "Christopher D. Green" <[email protected]> 08-Nov-09 11:51:12 AM >>> > *From:* Don Allen [mailto:[email protected]] > *Sent:* Saturday, November 07, 2009 7:24 PM > *To:* Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) > *Subject:* [tips] NoNotes > > Being a student (with money) just got a whole lot easier: > http://nonotes.com/index.htm > > The company says that their service allows you to concentrate on the > lecture rather that note taking. > I think this is a red herring. I have argued elsewhere that note-taking is the first cognitive pass through the material of the lecture (http://www.yorku.ca/christo/papers/PablumPoint.htm). It forces one to quickly interpret and summarize what has been said. Without it, it is too easy to just let the words pass over one without really comprehending them, or to drift off entirely. In short, note-taking HELPS concentration, rather than distracting one. (Yes, of course there are exceptions.) Chris -- Christopher D. Green Department of Psychology York University Toronto, ON M3J 1P3 Canada 416-736-2100 ex. 66164 [email protected] http://www.yorku.ca/christo/ ========================== --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([email protected]) --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([email protected])
