This article highlights some of the pitfalls that are easy to fall into. And I rant about PowerPoint.
Chronicle 11/12/04 “When Good Technology Means Bad Teaching” –
Students can be fickle in their opinions — they want faculty to use technology but they can see through ineffective applications of technology. It’s always been important to the LFCs to help faculty avoid the pitfalls and leap right to the effective uses of technology for teaching and learning.
Powerpoint is a dangerous tool. It’s effective for presenting visuals– graphs, images, movie clips– but not so much textual information. It’s amazing how many people commit the sin of reading powerpoint slides. Even at the IT conferences where the technologists think they’re so adept at the software and presenting, yep, some will just read! It’s painful sometimes. The article noted how overheads allow for interactive writing whereas powerpoint does not — unless you’re in SCI 123! The classroom technology is responding to the shortcoming of the presentation medium. Or you can make your laptop more interactive with something like DeskDoodle.
I hope the course management talk doesn’t frighten faculty away from such technologies. I agree that forcing or shoehorning online discussions where not appropriate makes for poor outcomes. But they can be very valuable when executed well — especially for courses where contact time is reduced and you want to maintain engagement with the material and between the students.
Leave a Reply