hardtailstar Posted February 24, 2017 Posted February 24, 2017 Apologies if this has been posted before but what do you think? Let's ban PowerPoint in lectures - it makes students more stupid and professors more boring | The Independent Personally I think that it can still be used as long as the educator is mixing in other methods of teaching like practicals etc and not just using a PowerPoint to teach.
elsiegee40 Posted February 24, 2017 Posted February 24, 2017 Like "chalk and talk", on occasion it has its place and is useful. Powerpoints are not the problem. It's the lack of imagination of some people using them. 4
mikeprice Posted February 24, 2017 Posted February 24, 2017 That has always been the problem with PowerPoint - how it is used by people We have all seen people who stand there and read the Powerpoint to us as if we can't read it ourselves Blaming the Powerpoint is like blaming a car for doing 100mph on the motorway - it is the driver that is in charge - not the car
elsiegee40 Posted February 24, 2017 Posted February 24, 2017 The people who use it badly are probably incapable of presenting in an interesting way using something else anyway.
rad Posted February 24, 2017 Posted February 24, 2017 It's the modern day overhead projector Who remembers these and the rolling blackboards teachers preplanned on? Seriously though, I dislike loads of text on one slide that they read from then add a few words to after! Also a slide with a YouTube link on...why, why not put it at the bottom of the previous slide.
elsiegee40 Posted February 24, 2017 Posted February 24, 2017 It's the modern day overhead projector [ATTACH=CONFIG]41794[/ATTACH] Who remembers these and the rolling blackboards teachers preplanned on? Seriously though, I dislike loads of text on one slide that they read from then add a few words to after! Also a slide with a YouTube link on...why, why not put it at the bottom of the previous slide. I remember those with the rolls of film. Watching and waiting as the line came up on the screen and you knew the teacher/lecturer was writing on the projector glass with permanent marker and never saying a word
mthomas08 Posted February 27, 2017 Posted February 27, 2017 Apologies if this has been posted before but what do you think? Let's ban PowerPoint in lectures - it makes students more stupid and professors more boring | The Independent Personally I think that it can still be used as long as the educator is mixing in other methods of teaching like practicals etc and not just using a PowerPoint to teach. This is actually the way NOT to teach, it's true it is dumbing it all down which is why to be an outstanding teacher you must be interacting with the students. It's not about just putting something on the board and letting them copy it. That's no different to chalk and blackboards. What is supposed to happen is a bit like speech notes, you elaborate on it all and talk to the students. You question them, give them feed back on what they say, explain what's on the board, get the kids thinking outside of the box and involved. Silly article in my view, considering even with debice - there are tools available which allows note making. Something several of our staff here use. I've even given wireless keyboards with a touchpad to some so they don't need to be at the front of the class. In fact there are limitations with a board Vs IT, the board you must be at the front and rub out when you've finished. With IT you can switch slides very easily. It's all down to the staff member and tools used. At a time where staff are constantly complaining that they don't have the time (this article also mentioned it) you want to add to their work load? Give them all 20 minutes before each class to "board prep". In a climate of School cuts, not enough teachers in a School and too many students... banning powerpoint would be interesting to see and not in a good way.
2ilent8cho Posted February 27, 2017 Posted February 27, 2017 (edited) Some people use PowerPoint really badly, the worst for me was when at a conference and the reader just read the slides word for word, it was painful. It can be a useful tool when used well just most don't have a clue. This guy shows how to use PowerPoint badly and really well. Edited February 27, 2017 by 2ilent8cho 1
GrumbleDook Posted February 27, 2017 Posted February 27, 2017 I can remember my worst lesson at school was history, a subject I loved but wasn't fantastic at. Cue the 3rd form (year 9 in today's setup) and the History wrote his notes on the board ... and we had to copy them down. As a slow writer it was heartbreaking for me to see blank sections in my notes and having to spend hours borrowing notes from others. We asked him to slow down and he refused. We had to speed up. Eventually, I was even banned from borrowing notes as I was 'being lazy in class'. A bad teacher is a bad teacher, no matter if using a blackboard, a whiteboard, an IWB, PowerPoint, Prezi or any other tool.
PotNoodleTech Posted February 27, 2017 Posted February 27, 2017 It's the teacher that matters not the software. Up until recently we had a teacher who still used OHPs on a daily basis. Some scoffed, I supported (and kept a spare OHP in the cupboard). Either way she had always by far the highest results in the school in some serious subjects. Who is to judge? 1
mikeprice Posted February 27, 2017 Posted February 27, 2017 It's the teacher that matters not the software. Up until recently we had a teacher who still used OHPs on a daily basis. Some scoffed, I supported (and kept a spare OHP in the cupboard). Either way she had always by far the highest results in the school in some serious subjects. Who is to judge? OHP or Powerpoint slide - very little difference - if the info on them is still relevant and well designed and thought out and the teacher is good why change
SteveBentley Posted February 27, 2017 Posted February 27, 2017 I have a pet theory that the rise of (and misuse of) VLEs has made the live lecture experience worse, because of the expectation that the Powerpoint slides, when uploaded to said VLE, will function as a complete set of lecture notes, rather than just being a visual aid to help to tell the story during the presentation. https://stevebentleyhud.wordpress.com/2015/02/09/has-the-vle-made-lectures-worse/
just_david Posted March 1, 2017 Posted March 1, 2017 I have a pet theory that the rise of (and misuse of) VLEs has made the live lecture experience worse, because of the expectation that the Powerpoint slides, when uploaded to said VLE, will function as a complete set of lecture notes, rather than just being a visual aid to help to tell the story during the presentation. https://stevebentleyhud.wordpress.com/2015/02/09/has-the-vle-made-lectures-worse/ Teachers need to be taught and given access to presenter mode. I've found that, once a teacher has adopted it, makes a huge difference. No longer does all their notes have to end up on a slide. But as has been said, a bad teacher will be bad with a blackboard, VLE or OHP. AS was said above I too remember the days when my notes had massive gaps as the teacher would wipe the notes off his board befor you had a chance to write them down. In the end, what powerpoint and VLE's do is make the bad teachers slight less bad, as at least you have access to the notes.
mikeprice Posted March 1, 2017 Posted March 1, 2017 When OHPs came out in the 1970's the physics dept at my school had EVERY lesson on an OHP - all stored in a box known as 'the coffin' Which was wonderful when doing 'O'levels and 'A' levels as you could always wander along at dinner or after school and look at the slides and make notes for stuff you missed same could be done nowadays with Powerpoint VLE etc
Meldrew Posted March 2, 2017 Posted March 2, 2017 I can remember my worst lesson at school was history, a subject I loved but wasn't fantastic at. Cue the 3rd form (year 9 in today's setup) and the History wrote his notes on the board ... and we had to copy them down. As a slow writer it was heartbreaking for me to see blank sections in my notes and having to spend hours borrowing notes from others. We asked him to slow down and he refused. We had to speed up. Eventually, I was even banned from borrowing notes as I was 'being lazy in class'. A bad teacher is a bad teacher, no matter if using a blackboard, a whiteboard, an IWB, PowerPoint, Prezi or any other tool. I have similar recollections myself in my Physics lessons. A lesson consisted of the teacher writing on the board and me trying desperately to keep up before she wiped it off the board to start writing again. I just ended up with unreadable notes written at 100 miles per hour. I was too busy writing it down to take any of it in and had jibberish notes to revise from.
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