Re: Powerpoint notes (was Chained Overheads)
On Tue, 20 Mar 2001 16:13:34 -0600 Rick Stevens [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I have all of my lectures on PowerPoint. However, I went to a lot of trouble to collect backgrounds and graphics and sounds. (Unlike the recommendations you will find for business users of PowerPoint) I never use slide templates. I make my own background/font/graphics combinations, and I change them each time I change a topic. By topic, I mean 5-10 changes in a 50 minute class. It takes a *lot* longer, but it provides another cue that helps to add structure and variation to the process. I try to make the graphics as relevant as possible, but an occasional irrelevant one (like Richard Nixon) will sometimes stand out. Rick: I like the idea of using a consistent background to indicate that the material is connected to a particular topic, and then switching the background to indicate a change in topic. Thanks for posting the info. Ken -- Kenneth M. Steele[EMAIL PROTECTED] Associate Professor Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
Re: Powerpoint notes (was Chained Overheads)
On Tue, 20 Mar 2001 17:59:00 -0600 (CST) Jeff Bartel [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On another note. . . But I have chosen not to use PowerPoint because of the negative comments about PP-lectures from several students. The chief complaints I have heard center around the use of slides that consist of 1-level bulleted lists, with some irrelevant graphic embroidery. The similarity of these slides within and across classes makes it difficult to attend to content information according to my informants. I agree that the "irrelevant graphic embroidery" doesn't add much in most cases, but I'm curious about the other concerns. The "use of slides that consist of 1-level bulleted lists" is not a problem inherent to presentation software. This same approach is often used by devout chalkboard/whiteboard and overhead users, too. A moderately skilled user could adapt any web, chalkboard, or overhead presentation into whatever presentation software s/he prefers. I think that the "similarity of these slides within and across classes" argument is also problematic of using overheads or the chalkboard, too, right? (And, as one TIPster already noted, the appearance could be changed much easier in PowerPoint than with a transparency.) I agree completely. I am a mix-and-match person, using chalk, overheads, computer presentations, sine-wave generators, audio cds, beepers, musical keyboards, weights, operant chambers, etc. It is clear in my classes that I am a technophile, and am always trying to drag in strange apparatus. That is why it was so striking that some students would complain to me about PP lectures. Obviously there are disadvantages to using computer presentation software. The two biggest ones I see are the requirement for a very bright projector (or a moderately dimmed room) and being "chained" to the computer (bringing us back to the origin of this thread) if one does not have a wireless mouse. However, I think that the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. For one, I can do a lot of things with PowerPoint that I just can't with overheads: sound clips, movies, animations, and the like are integrated. Further, I don't have to shuffle around to find the graphic transparency that goes along with the text transparency. I can put them on the same slide. I like the fact that it doesn't cost me to change my presentation (unlike the $.50/transparency it costs the department if I change my mind and want to insert a heading). I agree also. We (literally--myself and other technophiles in our department) have been wiring classrooms in our department so that we can do movies, animations, sound clips through computer based lectures. My observation is that some faculty are using all this technology to redo overhead techniques. And the manner in which some people use MS PowerPoint reinforces (strengthens, not a change in rate) that observation. That is my complaint. It sounds to me that what people who dislike presentation software object to is those who use the technology poorly. Of course, as I alluded to above, I've been in my fair share of low-tech lectures in which the chalkboard was used poorly (small, illegible writing; too few/many points; etc.). Is there anything about the medium per se that you don't like? Most of the obstacles can be overcome (with a bright projector, a wireless mouse, and some practice knowing what the audience needs on the slide), but I'm wondering if there are other concerns you have. I think that the metaphor of the "slideshow" is what concerns me most. A slideshow implies to me a streamlined, organized presentation where the concern is to get from point A to point B in economical fashion, like one would expect to encounter at a research conference. But this does not fit with what happens in a classroom for me on many occasions. Usually in a class session, I have 3 or 4 main points that I want students to understand. These points concern concepts, ideas, facts, or terminology that students in the past have had difficulty understanding. So, for example, this could be the distinction between positive and negative reinforcement. In this case I will go into the class with (literally) 20 overheads that contain short scenarios to be classified. I will go through as many or as few as I need until I am sure that at least some core group of students understands the distinction. Then I will move on. Obviously, I can convert these to html files, have several versions in different font sizes to match different classroom sizes, display them from a web site in class, and leave them on the web site so that students can study the examples at other times. This is a clear advantage of use of technology. But what does the PowerPoint slideshow analogy add? Ken Jeff =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Jeff Bartel
RE: PowerPoint notes (was Chained Overheads)
If you want an electronic copy of the handout, I can send you one as a Microsoft Publisher file. Suzi -Original Message- From: Jim Matiya [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Tuesday, March 20, 2001 7:16 PM To: Harry Avis Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Powerpoint notes (was Chained Overheads) Hi, At the Midwest Institute for the Teaching of Psychology (MITOP), Suzy Shapiro had a very nice handout for preparing PowerPoint presentations. She has suggestions such as how many lines per slide, etc. As a person who prepared a set of PowerPoints for a textbook, I thought her ideas were very good. In fact, I wish I had them before I made the ones for t he publisher!! I would be happy to mail you a copy if you send me your snail mail address. jim p.s. my address is at the verrry bottom of this e-mail Harry Avis wrote: I have been using Astound and PowerPoint presentations in my classes for at least five years. My experience has been mixed but overall positive. I use a spare outline on my powerpoint slides (basically the ABC heads from the text). I choose the option of printing handouts 3 to a page. This handout prints the three slides on the left side of the page and on the right there are lines for taking notes. The students who want to learn use this and appreciate them. Those who don't care ask me for the slides the class before the exam. I think a major factor is not the use of powerpoint -whether downloaded from the Web or handed out in class- but the requirements for the LCD projector. I find that I have to get the room fairly dark ( it is a long narrow classroom) and this darkness encourages sleeping. I also feel I lose some contact with the students. I keep the lights in the back of the classroom on whenever possible and have a cordless mouse with a range of 50 feet so I can wander throughout the classroom at will. My LCD projector is at least five years old. I have just submitted an capital outlay request for the new generation LCD which can reach 1500 ANSI lumens. Another instructor has one and it is several jnds better than mine. I haven't noticed any substantial difference in my grades in either direction however I have found it most valuable for me. The powerpoint slides help me stay on task and help me avoid rambling. However I have noticed that they also seem to reduce sudden insights that I have had while teaching without slides. What some call sudden insights others call loose associations. The other advantage to me is that I feel that I have taken the extra step. Not only do the students get an organized lecture but they also have my lecture notes (I do not use canned powerpoint slides). It is up to them to learn the material. From: "Michael J. Kane" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Stephen W Tuholski [EMAIL PROTECTED], TIPS [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Powerpoint notes (was Chained Overheads) Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2001 14:00:21 -0500 At 11:33 AM 3/20/01 -0600, Stephen W Tuholski wrote: (snip) Last year I decided to use Power Point for all of my lectures. One of the perceived benefits was that I could upload the power point presentations on my web page, allowing students to download them before class. I reasoned that students could use these downloads to follow along while taking additional notes. This sounded really nice, and I thought that if anything, grades would go up. Amazingly, grades seem to have dropped since I started putting the power points on-line. My explanation is that students simply download and study my notes, but they are paying LESS attention to me in class. Has anyone else had this happen to them? If this is the problem, do you suggest NOT putting the notes on-line? I am hesitant to do that, because the better students really like having them in advance, and they are using them the way I intended. Steve, I've heard this complaint, independently, from a number of colleagues using PowerPoint notes in their undergraduate classes. I wonder whether you might consider making your overheads more spare. I post outlines of my lecture notes on the web, and students print them out to use for note-taking purposes. However, these outlines are truly outlines, intended only to help students see/use the organization of my lectures. To get the content, they need to be in class to fill it in. In any case, if this problem is as widespread as my personal experiences are indicating of late, someone needs to do a study on it. -Mike Michael J. Kane Department of Psychology P.O. Box 26164 University of North Carolina at Greensboro Greensboro, NC 27402-6164 email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] phone: 336-256-1022 fax: 336-334-5066 _ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com -- Jim Matiya Carl Sandburg High School
Re: Powerpoint notes (was Chained Overheads)
At 11:33 AM 3/20/01 -0600, Stephen W Tuholski wrote: (snip) Last year I decided to use Power Point for all of my lectures. One of the perceived benefits was that I could upload the power point presentations on my web page, allowing students to download them before class. I reasoned that students could use these downloads to follow along while taking additional notes. This sounded really nice, and I thought that if anything, grades would go up. Amazingly, grades seem to have dropped since I started putting the power points on-line. My explanation is that students simply download and study my notes, but they are paying LESS attention to me in class. Has anyone else had this happen to them? If this is the problem, do you suggest NOT putting the notes on-line? I am hesitant to do that, because the better students really like having them in advance, and they are using them the way I intended. Steve, I've heard this complaint, independently, from a number of colleagues using PowerPoint notes in their undergraduate classes. I wonder whether you might consider making your overheads more spare. I post outlines of my lecture notes on the web, and students print them out to use for note-taking purposes. However, these outlines are truly outlines, intended only to help students see/use the organization of my lectures. To get the content, they need to be in class to fill it in. In any case, if this problem is as widespread as my personal experiences are indicating of late, someone needs to do a study on it. -Mike Michael J. Kane Department of Psychology P.O. Box 26164 University of North Carolina at Greensboro Greensboro, NC 27402-6164 email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] phone: 336-256-1022 fax: 336-334-5066
Re: Powerpoint notes (was Chained Overheads)
I've been posting my overheads online for a couple of years now and have done just as Michael Kane suggested in his post. Each successive class I have reduced the amount of detail on each slide. Now, I often have some sections of my overheads that are merely skeletons, where I fill in the major heading, but leave blanks for the subpoints. This approach has had some extra benefits of encouraging the class to ask questions. So if I'm lecturing on a topic and my overhead lists that there should be 3 subpoints and a student only has two and I change the topic, they tend to ask. At that point I ask them what they have and can re-explain (often they thought two ideas were just one, and I end up being more clear about the distinctions). The skeleton approach can put students off it it's totally skeleton form. Why bother to print it out ahead of time if it doesn't have any content? It's been a trial and error process and now I have a feel for what works for me. One other thing I should mention is that I try my best to explain that the webnotes are inadequate, they are merely available to help with organization and allow me to move the class at a faster pace. I then try to explain some ways that these notes are helpful. I point out that there is a lot of space around each line, to give the students room to personalize the notes (which usually leads to better recall and understanding). I have found that this approach (a strong explanation and warning at the beginning, and minimal, but useful web notes) very useful. As I mentioned, it does speed up the class. It can increase student questions. Students like them and have tended to use them correctly in my more recent classes (or I'm just deluding myself;-). I usually get good responses on my course evaluations about the notes, and the comments tend to recognize that the notes alone are inadequate, but they reduce busywork (e.g. recopying a verbatim definition) and allow for more cognitive work on the part of students (e.g. inserting their own personal example of a concept, or a classmate's example). Keep it up, Don ~ Donald J. Rudawsky University of Cincinnati Dept. of Psychology PO Box 210376 Cincinnati, OH 45210-0376 513.558.3146 [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://homepages.uc.edu/~rudawsdj
Re: Powerpoint notes (was Chained Overheads)
I have been using Astound and PowerPoint presentations in my classes for at least five years. My experience has been mixed but overall positive. I use a spare outline on my powerpoint slides (basically the ABC heads from the text). I choose the option of printing handouts 3 to a page. This handout prints the three slides on the left side of the page and on the right there are lines for taking notes. The students who want to learn use this and appreciate them. Those who don't care ask me for the slides the class before the exam. I think a major factor is not the use of powerpoint -whether downloaded from the Web or handed out in class- but the requirements for the LCD projector. I find that I have to get the room fairly dark ( it is a long narrow classroom) and this darkness encourages sleeping. I also feel I lose some contact with the students. I keep the lights in the back of the classroom on whenever possible and have a cordless mouse with a range of 50 feet so I can wander throughout the classroom at will. My LCD projector is at least five years old. I have just submitted an capital outlay request for the new generation LCD which can reach 1500 ANSI lumens. Another instructor has one and it is several jnds better than mine. I haven't noticed any substantial difference in my grades in either direction however I have found it most valuable for me. The powerpoint slides help me stay on task and help me avoid rambling. However I have noticed that they also seem to reduce sudden insights that I have had while teaching without slides. What some call sudden insights others call loose associations. The other advantage to me is that I feel that I have taken the extra step. Not only do the students get an organized lecture but they also have my lecture notes (I do not use canned powerpoint slides). It is up to them to learn the material. From: "Michael J. Kane" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Stephen W Tuholski [EMAIL PROTECTED], TIPS [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Powerpoint notes (was Chained Overheads) Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2001 14:00:21 -0500 At 11:33 AM 3/20/01 -0600, Stephen W Tuholski wrote: (snip) Last year I decided to use Power Point for all of my lectures. One of the perceived benefits was that I could upload the power point presentations on my web page, allowing students to download them before class. I reasoned that students could use these downloads to follow along while taking additional notes. This sounded really nice, and I thought that if anything, grades would go up. Amazingly, grades seem to have dropped since I started putting the power points on-line. My explanation is that students simply download and study my notes, but they are paying LESS attention to me in class. Has anyone else had this happen to them? If this is the problem, do you suggest NOT putting the notes on-line? I am hesitant to do that, because the better students really like having them in advance, and they are using them the way I intended. Steve, I've heard this complaint, independently, from a number of colleagues using PowerPoint notes in their undergraduate classes. I wonder whether you might consider making your overheads more spare. I post outlines of my lecture notes on the web, and students print them out to use for note-taking purposes. However, these outlines are truly outlines, intended only to help students see/use the organization of my lectures. To get the content, they need to be in class to fill it in. In any case, if this problem is as widespread as my personal experiences are indicating of late, someone needs to do a study on it. -Mike Michael J. Kane Department of Psychology P.O. Box 26164 University of North Carolina at Greensboro Greensboro, NC 27402-6164 email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] phone: 336-256-1022 fax: 336-334-5066 _ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com
Re: Powerpoint notes (was Chained Overheads)
Anecdotally, there are PowerPoint haters here too. I use lots of projection of movies, figures, sounds, urls, etc. in lectures. They are located on a class web site and I leave the items there for students to use later to complete notes. But I have chosen not to use PowerPoint because of the negative comments about PP-lectures from several students. The chief complaints I have heard center around the use of slides that consist of 1-level bulleted lists, with some irrelevant graphic embroidery. The similarity of these slides within and across classes makes it difficult to attend to content information according to my informants. A second difference I have observed as a member of an audience in a PP presentation is that it is often difficult for some presenters to alter the sequence of presentation in response to questions or comments. In those circumstances, this lack of flexibility makes the technique inferior to overheads. Ken On Tue, 20 Mar 2001 14:00:21 -0500 "Michael J. Kane" [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: At 11:33 AM 3/20/01 -0600, Stephen W Tuholski wrote: (snip) Last year I decided to use Power Point for all of my lectures. One of the perceived benefits was that I could upload the power point presentations on my web page, allowing students to download them before class. I reasoned that students could use these downloads to follow along while taking additional notes. This sounded really nice, and I thought that if anything, grades would go up. Amazingly, grades seem to have dropped since I started putting the power points on-line. My explanation is that students simply download and study my notes, but they are paying LESS attention to me in class. Has anyone else had this happen to them? If this is the problem, do you suggest NOT putting the notes on-line? I am hesitant to do that, because the better students really like having them in advance, and they are using them the way I intended. Steve, I've heard this complaint, independently, from a number of colleagues using PowerPoint notes in their undergraduate classes. I wonder whether you might consider making your overheads more spare. I post outlines of my lecture notes on the web, and students print them out to use for note-taking purposes. However, these outlines are truly outlines, intended only to help students see/use the organization of my lectures. To get the content, they need to be in class to fill it in. In any case, if this problem is as widespread as my personal experiences are indicating of late, someone needs to do a study on it. -Mike Michael J. Kane Department of Psychology P.O. Box 26164 University of North Carolina at Greensboro Greensboro, NC 27402-6164 email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] phone: 336-256-1022 fax: 336-334-5066 -- Kenneth M. Steele[EMAIL PROTECTED] Dept. of Psychology Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA
Re: Powerpoint notes (was Chained Overheads)
As a fan of powerpoint, I have to say that sometimes people go overboard with graphics, fancy transitions, etc. When I use powerpoint, I tend not to include anything that wouldn't work on a transparency. Occassionally I'll add some fun graphic, but most of the time it is just text. The color scheme I use is one that I customized, along with using a font size a little larger than the default so students in the back can see things. Basically, I see powerpoint working well as an electronic version of overhead transparencies. Oh, and the added benefit of being able to only show one point at a time (without having to move a sheet of paper down the transparency) is another feature I like. Ken made a point about the lack of flexibility in determing the order of presentation. This is probably the biggest fault of powerpoint I can think of. Once you get started viewing a show, it is fairly rigid. It is possible to skip slides and do things "out of order", but it takes lots of practice to get things to work smoothly. (It is possible to use a pop-up menu to goto specific slides, which is nice but awkward.) One thing that helps is a wireless remote to switch slides forward and back. That way you can quickly skip ahead if you need to, then go back. One PP feature I would like to see is a better way to vary the order of presentation on the fly. What I've found myself doing lately is just going ahead and discussing the point, then doing a brief review of the topic when the slide comes around... or giving a brief introduction to the topic and saying we'll talk more about it in just a minute... not necessarily the best approach, but it works for me... Of course, now the projector we use is out of order, so I've been developing the powerpoint slides just for the web (and to keep me on track) while actually using the old blackboard and chalk approach during lecture. - Marc (Oh, and I post the notes on the web after class. Also, the notes on the web aren't complete, which I tell them from the start. I like the fill in the blank approach and will probably try that next semester...) G. Marc Turner, MEd Lecturer Head of Computer Operations Department of Psychology Southwest Texas State University San Marcos, TX 78666 phone: (512)245-2526 email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Powerpoint notes (was Chained Overheads)
"Kenneth M. Steele" wrote: ...But I have chosen not to use PowerPoint because of the negative comments about PP-lectures from several students. The chief complaints I have heard center around the use of slides that consist of 1-level bulleted lists, with some irrelevant graphic embroidery. The similarity of these slides within and across classes makes it difficult to attend to content information according to my informants. I went to a technology in teaching conference one time and was disappointed to find that they presented material to us with PowerPoint (or something similar) using a slide template, the same color and format of bullet points all the way through. I went to sleep. I have all of my lectures on PowerPoint. However, I went to a lot of trouble to collect backgrounds and graphics and sounds. (Unlike the recommendations you will find for business users of PowerPoint) I never use slide templates. I make my own background/font/graphics combinations, and I change them each time I change a topic. By topic, I mean 5-10 changes in a 50 minute class. It takes a *lot* longer, but it provides another cue that helps to add structure and variation to the process. I try to make the graphics as relevant as possible, but an occasional irrelevant one (like Richard Nixon) will sometimes stand out. I also get some laughs (and attention) from sounds that are not related, but I change them on almost every slide, at least with every topic change. It sounds annoying, but it works for me. I have a big collection of South Park, Loony Toons, musical instrument, guns... all kinds of sounds, most of which I got from the Internet. A second difference I have observed as a member of an audience in a PP presentation is that it is often difficult for some presenters to alter the sequence of presentation in response to questions or comments. In those circumstances, this lack of flexibility makes the technique inferior to overheads. I ramble less with PowerPoint, but if you know what you are looking for you can easily 'right-click' and select any slide (by title or graphic) to go to next. I would think that it would be no different than overheads, maybe better. I tried making an outline on the first slide and making each item of the outline a hyperlink to the sequence of slides of that topic. You can put in a return link and jump back to the outline at the end of each topic showing where you are in the structure (the used links turn color like in a browser) but I decided that it was more trouble than it was worth. That concept did, however, make a pretty decent Jeopardy game, which gets a lot of positive comments from the students. We have remote mice, which allows unrestrained pacing. I generally like using PowerPoint and my students seem to like it, also. -- __ Rick Stevens __ Psychology Department __ University of Louisiana at Monroe __ http://www.ulm.edu/~stevens
Re: Powerpoint notes (was Chained Overheads)
On Tue, 20 Mar 2001, G. Marc Turner wrote: Ken made a point about the lack of flexibility in determing the order of presentation. This is probably the biggest fault of powerpoint I can think of. Once you get started viewing a show, it is fairly rigid. It is possible to skip slides and do things "out of order", but it takes lots of practice to get things to work smoothly. (It is possible to use a pop-up menu to goto specific slides, which is nice but awkward.) One thing that helps is a wireless remote to switch slides forward and back. That way you can quickly skip ahead if you need to, then go back. One PP feature I would like to see is a better way to vary the order of presentation on the fly. As a big fan of keyboard shortcuts, I tend to avoid using the mouse as much as possible (I guess that's a result of using DOS as my first operating system). As a result, I've discovered a few nifty tricks for getting around in Windows, particularly in MS Office applications. In PowerPoint, once you're in the slide show view, you can go to any slide in the presentation by pressing the number of the slide and then [enter]. Of course the skipping slides problem isn't solved if you don't know which slides are where, but if you print out a 6-slides-per-sheet handout, it's not too difficult to locate them. Another tip: you can advance to the next slide half a dozen ways: press either [enter] key (on a full-sized keyboard, the one on the number pad works), the down arrow, [n], the space bar, [page down], . . . in addition to clicking the mouse. If you look at a laptop keyboard, the lower right button is usually one that advances the presentation one slide (useful in the dark). I find the spacebar is the easiest, just because it's the biggest one. [p], [page up], the up arrow, and [backspace] all get you to the previous slide. (I assume these also work in the Mac version.) If you search for help on "keyboard shortcuts" in any MS Office application, you will find lots of similar tips. On another note. . . But I have chosen not to use PowerPoint because of the negative comments about PP-lectures from several students. The chief complaints I have heard center around the use of slides that consist of 1-level bulleted lists, with some irrelevant graphic embroidery. The similarity of these slides within and across classes makes it difficult to attend to content information according to my informants. I agree that the "irrelevant graphic embroidery" doesn't add much in most cases, but I'm curious about the other concerns. The "use of slides that consist of 1-level bulleted lists" is not a problem inherent to presentation software. This same approach is often used by devout chalkboard/whiteboard and overhead users, too. A moderately skilled user could adapt any web, chalkboard, or overhead presentation into whatever presentation software s/he prefers. I think that the "similarity of these slides within and across classes" argument is also problematic of using overheads or the chalkboard, too, right? (And, as one TIPster already noted, the appearance could be changed much easier in PowerPoint than with a transparency.) Obviously there are disadvantages to using computer presentation software. The two biggest ones I see are the requirement for a very bright projector (or a moderately dimmed room) and being "chained" to the computer (bringing us back to the origin of this thread) if one does not have a wireless mouse. However, I think that the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. For one, I can do a lot of things with PowerPoint that I just can't with overheads: sound clips, movies, animations, and the like are integrated. Further, I don't have to shuffle around to find the graphic transparency that goes along with the text transparency. I can put them on the same slide. I like the fact that it doesn't cost me to change my presentation (unlike the $.50/transparency it costs the department if I change my mind and want to insert a heading). It sounds to me that what people who dislike presentation software object to is those who use the technology poorly. Of course, as I alluded to above, I've been in my fair share of low-tech lectures in which the chalkboard was used poorly (small, illegible writing; too few/many points; etc.). Is there anything about the medium per se that you don't like? Most of the obstacles can be overcome (with a bright projector, a wireless mouse, and some practice knowing what the audience needs on the slide), but I'm wondering if there are other concerns you have. Jeff =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Jeff Bartel http://www-personal.ksu.edu/~jbartel Department of Psychology, Kansas State University =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Reading an email message about a new email virus? Getting a note that's been forwarded to a dozen other people? Before
Re: Powerpoint notes (was Chained Overheads)
Hi, At the Midwest Institute for the Teaching of Psychology (MITOP), Suzy Shapiro had a very nice handout for preparing PowerPoint presentations. She has suggestions such as how many lines per slide, etc. As a person who prepared a set of PowerPoints for a textbook, I thought her ideas were very good. In fact, I wish I had them before I made the ones for t he publisher!! I would be happy to mail you a copy if you send me your snail mail address. jim p.s. my address is at the verrry bottom of this e-mail Harry Avis wrote: I have been using Astound and PowerPoint presentations in my classes for at least five years. My experience has been mixed but overall positive. I use a spare outline on my powerpoint slides (basically the ABC heads from the text). I choose the option of printing handouts 3 to a page. This handout prints the three slides on the left side of the page and on the right there are lines for taking notes. The students who want to learn use this and appreciate them. Those who don't care ask me for the slides the class before the exam. I think a major factor is not the use of powerpoint -whether downloaded from the Web or handed out in class- but the requirements for the LCD projector. I find that I have to get the room fairly dark ( it is a long narrow classroom) and this darkness encourages sleeping. I also feel I lose some contact with the students. I keep the lights in the back of the classroom on whenever possible and have a cordless mouse with a range of 50 feet so I can wander throughout the classroom at will. My LCD projector is at least five years old. I have just submitted an capital outlay request for the new generation LCD which can reach 1500 ANSI lumens. Another instructor has one and it is several jnds better than mine. I haven't noticed any substantial difference in my grades in either direction however I have found it most valuable for me. The powerpoint slides help me stay on task and help me avoid rambling. However I have noticed that they also seem to reduce sudden insights that I have had while teaching without slides. What some call sudden insights others call loose associations. The other advantage to me is that I feel that I have taken the extra step. Not only do the students get an organized lecture but they also have my lecture notes (I do not use canned powerpoint slides). It is up to them to learn the material. From: "Michael J. Kane" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Stephen W Tuholski [EMAIL PROTECTED], TIPS [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Powerpoint notes (was Chained Overheads) Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2001 14:00:21 -0500 At 11:33 AM 3/20/01 -0600, Stephen W Tuholski wrote: (snip) Last year I decided to use Power Point for all of my lectures. One of the perceived benefits was that I could upload the power point presentations on my web page, allowing students to download them before class. I reasoned that students could use these downloads to follow along while taking additional notes. This sounded really nice, and I thought that if anything, grades would go up. Amazingly, grades seem to have dropped since I started putting the power points on-line. My explanation is that students simply download and study my notes, but they are paying LESS attention to me in class. Has anyone else had this happen to them? If this is the problem, do you suggest NOT putting the notes on-line? I am hesitant to do that, because the better students really like having them in advance, and they are using them the way I intended. Steve, I've heard this complaint, independently, from a number of colleagues using PowerPoint notes in their undergraduate classes. I wonder whether you might consider making your overheads more spare. I post outlines of my lecture notes on the web, and students print them out to use for note-taking purposes. However, these outlines are truly outlines, intended only to help students see/use the organization of my lectures. To get the content, they need to be in class to fill it in. In any case, if this problem is as widespread as my personal experiences are indicating of late, someone needs to do a study on it. -Mike Michael J. Kane Department of Psychology P.O. Box 26164 University of North Carolina at Greensboro Greensboro, NC 27402-6164 email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] phone: 336-256-1022 fax: 336-334-5066 _ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com -- Jim Matiya Carl Sandburg High School e-mail me: Lewis University[EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel: 708.301.6533 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fax: 708.301.0226 http://www.d230.org/cs/matiya
