PowerPoint and Teacing Effectiveness?

PowerPoint and Teacing Effectiveness?

by Alexandre Enkerli -
Number of replies: 43
How do we go from a university press release on Sweller's cognitive load theory to the notion that it's "[o]fficial{,] Powerpoint [is] bad for brains?"
Of course, the Register is known for provocative statements and going on long limbs. But it's interesting in this case that the limb in question goes with a popular gripe: PowerPoint use can lead to bad presentations. In fact, it's funnyto note that the Register version isn't really about learning situation but more about the use of presentation software in sales pitches (in which the goal is to dazzle, not to teach).

Now, I don't have a problem rethinking my own teaching practises. And maybe I'm way off. I happen to think that my methods are fairly effective and I don't see a major problem with my lecturing style. But I'm always willing to question myself.
Constructive comments are deeply appreciated. But, please, don't flame me! Pensif

I must admit, I do use presentation slides in my lectures. (Zoho, Keynote, LaTeX, or even PowerPoint.) And, yes, they are bullet points. (Hey, take that flame-thrower away!)
Through Moodle (of course) I give students the material from my slides as lecture notes, either before or after lectures. In a way, it's the most effective way for me to structure my lectures and students get an idea of where I'm at when I'm going on a tangent (which happens quite frequently).
My courses aren't so much about retention of information as much as they are about understanding broad issues and connecting these issues together. In large classes, I do devote some time to making some of these connections myself but I specifically don't try to get participants to memorise the things I say in the classroom. For instance, when explaining a concept, I try to not simply give out definitions for people to remember but I do try to unpack concepts by relating them with issues we've discussed (or we'll be discussing) in other contexts.
So far, I've been quite happy with the results.
One thing I've often noticed is that, early in the semester, many students have a tendency to copy down the content of the slides. Because I assured students that this same content would be available on Moodle, it has been possible for me to get more students to change their note-taking habits.
This semester, my courses have been podcast. I don't have data to support specific claims but I get the clear impression that the podcast availability of the lecture content has helped us shift the focus from "rote learning" to "preparation for discussing issues." In fact, I lecture less and less.

Sweller's ideas (from which the "PowerPoint is bad for the brain" stance is coming) apparently have to do with distinguishing the material presented in written form from the spoken material. To me, it sounds as if Sweller's criticism targets the "reading from the slide" habit of some PowerPoint users. I would agree that this practise is ineffective. Yet, Sweller does seem to criticise the use of bullet points. Repeating that bullet content wouldn't work either.
Couldn't help but think of Stephen Colbert's "The Word" segment (with bullet points directly contradicting what Colbert says). If the interpretation of Sweller's counter-PowerPoint is accurate, Colbert's method should be more effective than the usual "bullet point as summary" practise.

Those of you who do use some slide presentations in class, what do you find is most effective?
Again: no flames, please! Indécis
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In reply to Alexandre Enkerli

Re: PowerPoint and Teacing Effectiveness?

by A. T. Wyatt -
Greetings, Alexandre!

I think you are quite correct--it is the way you USE powerpoint (or any other tool), not so much the tool itself. I think there is a huge difference between using PowerPoint as a lecture tool with a large group and projection and using PowerPoint when the text is all the students will ever have, accessed individually.

I like using slide presentations in class. I teach in a lab (and soon will have a laptop campus where every student has their own computer all the time). I have always thought that I got better attention from the students when they could "click with me".

If you have the paper version ahead of time, it is very helpful to add notes as the instructor elaborates. Personally, I have been frustrated almost to the point of tears when a speaker lectures on an important topic, does not provide a handout, and then races through the slides. I can't remember anything afterwards, am left with half the bullets written out, and writer's cramp/high blood pressure! The problem, of course, is not only access (making your presentations available through moodle) but also access prior to and following the lecture! And choice--I can print if I want or download and annotate the file.

It seems to me that powerpoint is a poor way to push large quantities of information to large groups. Especially information that is dense, requires a lot of details, or requires complicated diagrams or tables of data. These things are better done with text on paper--high contrast, high resolution, and close enough to read well.

However, if your powerpoint is meant to be a one-on-one teaching tool, not a traditional lecture where many students must look at a large projection, then I think you can use much more text, smaller font sizes, and plan for the students to read the slides. I have been very grateful to the authors of a number of powerpoint presentations I have found on the web (long after the original presentation) who put a great deal of text into their slides! While that might not have been appropriate for the large group/projection setting, it was wonderful for the person who missed the presentation and only wanted to read about the important points.

Powerpoint is immensely flexible and easy to work with. Therefore, perhaps it is also easy to abuse! smile

Ruth Colvin Clark and Richard Mayer have written several books dealing with cognitive load and e-learning. Certainly some of what they say can be applied to powerpoint in the classroom! Have you read any of their work?

atw
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In reply to Alexandre Enkerli

Re: PowerPoint and Teacing Effectiveness?

by Michael Penney -
Dr. Richard Mayer has a good take on the use of Powerpoint, etc.:

http://www.indezine.com/products/powerpoint/personality/richardmayer.html

"In a recent paper, "Nine Ways to Reduce Cognitive Load in Multimedia Learning" (published in the Educational Psychologist), I suggest techniques such as eliminating extraneous material. Thus, a bar graph should not be presented with three-dimensional bars and lots of cute, but irrelevant, clip art."

(edit, I see AT has beat me to mentioning Mayersmile.

Of course one could just easily overload working memory with a lesson as with a powerpoint (and soon you will be able to overload working memory with a Flexpage course format--though I'd guess you could do it right now with a 20 topic coursesmile.

7 +/- 2!


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In reply to Michael Penney

Re: PowerPoint and Teacing Effectiveness?

by A. T. Wyatt -
Dr. Eric Mazur, from Harvard, also has done some interesting work related to visuals and how faulty mental models (particularly in physics) act as a major barrier to learning. I heard him speak a year or so ago, and his address was fascinating. He spent some time talking about the efficacy of certain types of visuals--diagrams vs video and the types of situations when each was most effective. He tracked eye movements of students looking at various types of diagrams, and it was pretty clear that additional (extraneous) detail to the picture seemed a distraction.
---------------------------------
OT: I am dying to get ahold of the Flexpage course format! Could you please post on that and give us some background and more information on the project (including some idea of when/if the code will be available? I think I saw a mention of June. . .)

atw
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In reply to A. T. Wyatt

Re: PowerPoint and Teacing Effectiveness?

by Ralf Hilgenstock -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Translators
Kathy Sierra, developer of the new IT book conceopt "Head First " at O'Reilly, is editor of a very interesting blog "Creating Passionate User".
Main topic is the writing of manuals. She creates a user oriented type of writing. You can find there a lot of very practical tips we can use for desinging online courses and course ressources.

http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2005/08/you_are_a_marke.html
http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2005/06/kill_your_prese.html
http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2005/09/listening_to_us.html
http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2006/06/do_your_graphic.html
http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2005/01/creating_playfu.html
http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2006/01/crash_course_in.html

I would like to work on a manual with such tips for course design this year. Who is interesting to create a small group?

Ralf
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In reply to Ralf Hilgenstock

Re: PowerPoint and Teacing Effectiveness?

by Frances Bell -
Sadly, Kathy may not be blogging in future after receiving vicious misogynist comments including death threats.
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In reply to Frances Bell

Re: PowerPoint and Teacing Effectiveness?

by A. T. Wyatt -
Yes, that is reported. This published today in the International Herald Tribune:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/04/09/news/blogs.php

atw
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In reply to A. T. Wyatt

Re: PowerPoint and Teacing Effectiveness?

by Frances Bell -
That is an interesting article A.T.. I note that it and Kathy's recent post http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/
refer to a tendency for women talk to each other in private spaces. Herring noted that even as Internet demographics change so that women become equivalent or more frequent users than men, men still dominate public discourse. Kathy's experience could form part of an explanation for that. Such incidents spark discussion about discussion guidelines but IMHO, what is needed is cultural change rather than rules so that sexism and racism are not tolerated in public spaces and it's O.K. to say so. I don't mean that this is easy, and it's not made easier by the 'electronic frontier' attitudes that formed in the early days of CMC (Usenet, etc.) - a libertarian ethic that shouts loudest 'freedom of speech' and says little about responsibility. What price Kathy's 'freedom of speech'?
I'll write about this some more on my blog but I thought that I would raise some of the points here on Moodle.org - a predominantly male but usually friendly space.

Herring, S. C. 2004, 'Slouching Toward the Ordinary: Current Trends in Computer-Mediated Communication', New Media & Society, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 26-36.

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In reply to Michael Penney

Re: PowerPoint and Teacing Effectiveness?

by Art Lader -
Just went through a flex format demo with some info about Moodle 2.0.

Wow... I am blown away.

-- Art
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In reply to Art Lader

Re: PowerPoint and Teacing Effectiveness?

by Michael Penney -
Hi Art, glad you like itsmile.

Just to be clear, the 'vtwo' is actually just what we called the release build of the tools for Intel (we did version 1 last Oct-Dec--Mark, Jeff, and Michael A. pulled off an amazing amount of work in that timesmile), I have no idea if any of this work will be part of Moodle 2.0 (we're in the middle of upgrading Flexpage and the other components for Moodle 1.8 nowsmile) .


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In reply to Michael Penney

Re: PowerPoint and Teacing Effectiveness?

by Art Lader -
Thanks for the clarification, Michael. Amazing.

I am excited about the future!

Regards,
Art
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In reply to Alexandre Enkerli

Re: PowerPoint and Teacing Effectiveness?

by Samuli Karevaara -
After Edward Tuftes "The Congnitive Style of Powerpoint" more and more people have been jumping on the "ditch Powerpoint" wagon. Justifications for this varied from "it's baad mmm'kay" to something more sophisticated. Alternatives then varied from "just use PDF or web pages instead" to something more sophisticated. Replacing the platform to deliver the same content rarely touches the cognitive or pedagogical side of things. (It might chance the material in intangible ways, however).

I've simplified the PP-criticism in overall to mean the way it is often used: too much text, using bullet-points but the "points" are long pieces of text, too much or too little) effects, reading from the slides etc. as mentioned already.

Often suggested improvements to this style tend to focus on the "selling what you're telling" (home-coined "phrase" there smile ) and thus they don't lend themselves very well to the school environment. For example: it is more effective/capturing to have very simplified slides, maybe without any bullets, just some pictures or graphics, dark ambiance, and then speaking instead of reading ("Steve Jobs style"). But as such the slides serve no purpose outside the lecture: without the audio (at least) you have pretty much nothing. Traditional (a.k.a. "boring") slides serve much better as "lecture notes". Also they make it easier to remember the structure of the lecture without peeking at some other notes smile

I thought that a nice way would be to have three levels of the material: lecture slides (graphics and few words/bullets only), lecture note slides (the current main style, they would be handy when refreshing the memory before the exam, for example) and then the "real" material, i.e. the course text book.

Obviously this is more effort to the teacher. Not everybody is born to be Steve Jobs (I wonder if he makes his own slides). Also, what does this mean on the virtual course? Would there be two versions, one with sparse slides + audio and then a more textual version also? (+ the bulk of the material also, maybe?)
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In reply to Samuli Karevaara

Re: PowerPoint and Teacing Effectiveness?

by Peter Campbell -
I have 4 comments on this:

1 - I saw Neil Gershenfeld and John Seely Brown give extraordinary PPoint presentations at Educause in 2002; they were effective because they did a Steve-Jobs-style presentation, i.e., the slides were minimal and they did not look at them once, but rather used them to support the message they were delivering orally. Which brings me to my second point.

2 - ppoint causes cognitive disconnect - where do you look when someone is giving a traditional PPoint presentation? I tend to want to look at the speaker, which means I don't look at the slides. So why are they there? Most of the slides are badly paraphrased bullets of what the speaker is already saying, so what's the point?

3 - Lawrence Lessig solves this problem in his presentations by making his PPoint presentations behave more like film/video. His voice is a layer on top of the visuals. His presentations have hundreds and hundreds of slides because they function almost like frames in a video/film sequence. There is no cognitive disconnect because your attention is clearly on the slides. Lessig's voice lays on top of the slides.

4 - Are narrated PPoints on the web better than texts of the same? In the day and age of Web 2.0, YouTube, and the Net Generation with cable TV and iMovie, the point might be moot in a teaching and learning context for young people. Whether you like to read text or not, your students may not only prefer visuals over text, but they may learn better as a result. And even if you don't buy the whole multiple intelligences argument, some students may not "read" a text unless it's a narrated PPoint presentation. The kind of work that Lessig does may be the next frontier of writing with images that is not exactly film and not exactly traditional text. It's a new genre altogether.

See example here:


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In reply to Peter Campbell

Re: PowerPoint and Teacing Effectiveness?

by Richard Treves -
I think the central problem with PP is not the program itself, it is the style that is suggested by the program. Its geared towards commercial companies pitching ideas, not at teachers in the lecture room. Tufte's discussion goes too far IMHO, he entertainingly trashes PP (pointing out the business bias) then labels it as evil and suggests it should be withdrawn. Actually, if you ignore all the wizards and gizmos, you can still usefully use it as noted by Peter re L Lessig - I'm not sure if LL does use PP but you could get PP to do what he does in his talks.

My team uses PP to help teach Geography, its a very graphical subject so the ability to pop up an image then highlight a bit and discuss it is very useful. To do this you have to get into 'custom animation' which is a feature of PP designed to produce spinning logos and other chart junk (Tufte's phrase). However, we ignore all that whizzy rubbish and use it to annotate diagrams usefully, the ability to 'build' an image or diagram layer by layer is extremely useful in terms of explaining something complex. We use a program to convert the PP to flash and use them in our distance learning materials, this is an example, its a bit old and needs tidying up but you'll get the idea.

I've just submitted a draft of a chapter in an elearning book on our use of PP in this manner, basically you can get into Adobe flash to do this very professionally but if you're prepared to accept a few rough corners PP can really aid your teaching.

Having said that, I don't like PP for itself, it just has its uses. I also wish people would stop posting PPs as a summary of their talks - IMHO its the equivalent of emailing someone 'how was your reunion dinner last night?' and having them mail you back just the menu. If you want to summarise then headings and bullet points usually won't do, you have to write prose.

Rich
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In reply to Richard Treves

Re: PowerPoint and Teacing Effectiveness?

by Howard Miller -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers
I have a (personal) rule for the use of PowerPoint (to be honest I mostly use Apple's Keynote but the same applies)... "never, ever, use bulleted lists". In fact, further than that, I mostly try to use things like cartoons to engage interest. It sometimes works even smile

PS:
I'm not a teacher!
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In reply to Alexandre Enkerli

Re: PowerPoint and Teacing Effectiveness?

by Tony Hursh -
http://norvig.com/Gettysburg/

smile

And yeah, I use Powerpoint, too.

I definitely do my best to have the presentation available on the web for printing out (preferably well ahead of time).

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In reply to Alexandre Enkerli

Re: PowerPoint and Teacing Effectiveness?

by Benny Hill -

effectively developed slides can generate discussion

moodle curve

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In reply to Benny Hill

Re: Moodle-Featurities and Teacing Effectiveness?

by Ralf Hilgenstock -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Translators
I will seize your suggestion.

A trainer posted in a german forum some days ago she won't update to 1.7 because most of the new features are only for admins and not for trainers. She will wait for 2.0.

And some month ago I presented Moodle on a the german campussource conference in Münster. After half a day of presentations about lots of new features in several other LMS I started with a wish "Lets stop developing new features for a year. Lets take twelve months and try to explain existing features and the use of this features to the teachers and training staff and to support them in using the features." I got a lot of applause, but some of the developers of other tools stand up and leaved the room.


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In reply to Ralf Hilgenstock

Re: Moodle-Featurities and Teacing Effectiveness?

by Brian Mulligan -
The suggestion of not developing new features for a while is an interesting one. My biggest challenge for the moment is getting other teachers to use the system. However, this may be an opportunity for those Moodle users who are not programmers to contribute. Maybe I an incorrect on this, but when I try to find documentation on http://docs.moodle.org/ to help me with staff training, I find that the documentation is really oriented to completely defining all functions rather than guiding a beginner through using the system. What I am looking for are tutorials for self-paced learning for beginner Moodle teachers (and maybe for students also). Does anyone know if these are being developed in wiki format? If they do not exist, I would be prepared to work on that.

Brian
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In reply to Ralf Hilgenstock

Re: Moodle-Featurities and Teacing Effectiveness?

by Martin Dougiamas -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Moodle HQ Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers
http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2005/06/featuritis_vs_t.html

I'd put Moodle 2.x at the top of that curve, not 1.6. wink

That said if some people like Moodle 1.6 or 1.5 then it's always there, stick with it! No-one is forcing anyone to upgrade.
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In reply to Martin Dougiamas

Re: Moodle-Featurities and Teacing Effectiveness?

by Brian Mulligan -
I would have imagined that it is possible both to add features and to keep a product usable for beginners, so I'm hoping that Moodle 2.x will not be at the top of the curve, but that we'll be moving upwards way past that. I'm not a software development professional, but having used software for more than 30 years I would have said that the following two issues would help:
  1. Keep advanced (or even intermediate) features out of harm's way so that the beginner/intermediate user does not really even see them ( a bit like the "Getting Things Done" approach of reducing the amount of things visible at any time).
  2. Have good documentation for beginners (particularly tutorials). Again, this means hiding intermediate and advanced features from the less experienced.
Thanks to Ralf for giving me the links to doccumentation which seems to have improved since I last looked at it. I have not had the time to look at them all but I would have a few comments based on what I've looked at so far:
  1. The teacher documentation at Moodle.org is comprehensive. I find it useful but overwhelming for other teaching staff who are starting out. As suggested above, it refers to too many features and it describes how to use each one. Too much for a person to get started on his/her own.
  2. Some resources (eg. some cornell videos) are specific to the template supplied in that institution and are not generally usable by other people. Sometimes they are in a format that you can take and edit (subject to creative commons) but more generally they are not.
  3. This method of publishing quickly goes out of date and is not really taking advantage of the large number of users out there who have responsibility for training in their peers. It seems to me that using the wiki approach for the development of tutorials would get more done more quickly and would be more likely to be up to date.
The last time I tried to do this on http://docs.moodle.org/ I could not see how I could try to create new documentation. I was thinking of starting a tutorial for beginners. Did I miss something? If anyone can let me know how to start new documentation, I would be interested in starting this. I am not very good at writing tutorials, but the beauty of the wiki is that this would be spotted quickly and put right.

Brian
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In reply to Brian Mulligan

Re: Moodle-Featurities and Teacing Effectiveness?

by Ralf Hilgenstock -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Translators

Try this: http://docs.moodle.org/en/MoodleDocs:Guidelines_for_contributors
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In reply to Ralf Hilgenstock

Re: Moodle-Featurities and Teacing Effectiveness?

by Brian Mulligan -
Ralf,

thanks for the pointer to contributors' guidelines. I have put up an initial page at: http://docs.moodle.org/en/Introductory_Tutorials_for_Teachers

I have not linked to that from anywhere else for the moment until I'm sure I want to move forward on it and knock it into better shape. Of course, I also have to find the time.

I'm waiting to be talked out of this idea - that what I'm looking for is available elsewhere. Encouragement or discouragment welcome.

Brian
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In reply to Brian Mulligan

Re: Moodle-Featurities and Teacing Effectiveness?

by Ralf Hilgenstock -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Translators
Hi Brian,

I've added first informations. Please correct them (oh my english) and make a new organization of the text.

Ralf
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In reply to Brian Mulligan

Re: Moodle-Featurities and Teacing Effectiveness?

by Paul Nijbakker -
Hi Brian,

You are welcome to use any material from our Beginner's and Teacher's manuals for the doc, if there is anything useful in there. I do not have the time, unfortunately.

Rgrds,
Paul.
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In reply to Martin Dougiamas

Re: Moodle-Featurities and Teacing Effectiveness?

by Ralf Hilgenstock -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Translators
<<I'd put Moodle 2.x at the top of that curve, not 1.6.>>
Hi Martin,

thats not my point. You can say this for each new version everytime.

I think we need additional capacities and helpers in documentation and in telling the new features to the teachers and how to use them. My idea is that we have updates of the documentation for admins and teachers nearly at the same time like a new version.

The wiki documentation is not up to date and there are not enough people to write them and I can't see a strategy to do this. This is not a critic, but a call to all the readers to help with the documentation. Helen is doing a great job, and I see that there is a great spanish version. But thats not enough.

One deep hole is the documentation about the roles and capabilities. There is a lot of critics that we could have avoided if we had a better communication and documentation of the use of roles, contexts and capabilites.

I really know about the time it needs to write the docs. I'll do it in german and in several posting most of the time in the german forums.

But we need more help to do this in a better way from a lot of people.

Martin, thats not a call to the headquarter, but to the reading audience here.

Ralf
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In reply to Ralf Hilgenstock

Re: Moodle-Featurities and Teacing Effectiveness?

by Alexandre Enkerli -
About time-commitment to write docs.
Trying to go back to the origin of the WikiWiki concept. Something quick and easy.
Maybe we can start with barebones "this is Moodle, here's what it does." Not full documents to be edited by lots of people. But a couple of points to start with the most basic things, including roles, activities, and resources.

I got it!
One-Minute Papers!
Anyone?
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In reply to Alexandre Enkerli

Re: Moodle-Featurities and Teacing Effectiveness?

by Ralf Hilgenstock -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Translators
Hi Alexandre,

I just made a translation of a mindmap I'm using as training handout.
Mindmaps are easy to create, easy to understand.

mindmap
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In reply to Ralf Hilgenstock

Re: Moodle-Featurities and Teacing Effectiveness?

by A. T. Wyatt -
Ralf, I like it! You might add student enrollment in the #2 section. Some teachers do their own, some do not (of course!)

What software did you use to create this diagram?

atw
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In reply to Alexandre Enkerli

Re: Moodle-Featurities and Teacing Effectiveness?

by Ralf Hilgenstock -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Translators
Here just an other mindmap.
Do you think it is sensefull to add them to docs.moodle.org?
Mindmap Installation New Modules

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In reply to Ralf Hilgenstock

Re: Moodle-Featurities and Teacing Effectiveness?

by A. T. Wyatt -
I think that diagrams are very helpful, but I have one small concern. I struggle sometimes with mind maps because you have to decide whether the information is sequential/hierarchical or just "flat" (meaning any order).

Do you think these things can be done in any order, or should some of them be done first? If you think a sequential/hierarchical approach makes more sense, then the diagram needs to somehow make that clear. Which is hard! You could use numbers, or arrange it more top to bottom, or use arrows. I think yours is organized in a clockwise fashion, but I had to think hard before I realized that. Which means I had to have prior knowledge.

Do you think that matters?

atw
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In reply to A. T. Wyatt

Re: Moodle-Featurities and Teacing Effectiveness?

by Ralf Hilgenstock -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Translators
Here are two alternatives:
2

3
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In reply to Ralf Hilgenstock

Re: Moodle-Featurities and Teacing Effectiveness?

by A. T. Wyatt -
I like both. I would choose based on the shape of the space I had to fill.

atw
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In reply to A. T. Wyatt

Re: Moodle-Featurities and Teacing Effectiveness?

by Patrick Malley -
As is the case with any teaching tool, there is no magic bullet. If I mind-mapped every one of my lessons, I would be leaving my "linear" learners in the dust. I think that it is important to present information to students in several ways.

For example, I use bullets in PowerPoint (KeyNote actually). I present each slide on a projection screen next to my white-board. I then draw pictures, tables, diagrams, and graphs on the board. At the same time, I tell stories and give examples verbally.

In this way, I find that I hit the majority of students' learning styles/habits.

I am a high school psychology teacher, so forgive the following lesson in advance!

The mind is organized semantically; everything is connected in some way by it's meaning. When I say standard deviation, I want students to think "average distance from the mean." Not because they memorized the definition, but because they truly understand how it works. I will represent this in pictures, words, lists, equations, and even dance if I have to until all of my students have something to connect with.

The mind is also structured heirarchically; in order of rank and importance. Outlines help students understand emphasis. For example, when I talk of Bandura and Bobo dolls, I want students to think about observational learning, and how children do as you do, and say as you say. But, I also want students to understand implications of such a demonstration - television for example. To present such importance, I think it is helpful to start with an outline (even if in bullet form)!

Now, if I relied only on my bullets to present information, I would not be doing my job. The point is that I think bullets have a place in learning (gasp!). Do I overuse bullets? You bet. Will I continue to find other ways of organizing information that is better suited for my classroom environment. Sure. But, that does not mean that any alternative will magically be better than what I do at the present - which is hitting every topic on several different levels.

I should mention: Using Moodle, all notes in my class are offered as PDF before class; all presentations are offered in SWF after class
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In reply to Ralf Hilgenstock

Re: Moodle-Featurities and Teacing Effectiveness?

by Martin Dougiamas -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Moodle HQ Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers
Sure! Helen can only do so much: I'd love to see a more concerted community effort at the docs and will support anything like that!

That said, have you seen the Roles documentation lately?

http://docs.moodle.org/en/Roles
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In reply to Benny Hill

Featuritis and Enthusiasm

by Alexandre Enkerli -
This featuritis graph is quite insightful. Yet, I'm not sure my conclusions are exactly the same as Benny's, Ralf's, or Brian's. We'll see...

I personally don't think that the number of new features is the main issue. But there's something to be said about the directions taken on Moodle's roadmaps, from a user's perspective. Actually, there's something to be said about a sense of direction. We see it's going somewhere, but we're selling Moodle 2.0 right now instead of using Moodle 1.7 while it lasts.
The solution might be more informal discussion, not a feature freeze.

Just to use an anecdotal example. Rockbox is an open-source project to develop third-party firmware to make digital audio players (including the iPod) do things they weren't originally designed to do. Typical hacker/enthusiast stuff. The firmware releases are relatively stable but the overall project apparently became more difficult to manage. So the Rockbox project's admins instituted a feature-freeze for a few months. The announcement about the lift of the feature freeze is quite telling:
I, Linus and Daniel discussed the freeze over lunch today and decided that in this difficult situation, we need to focus on the core values: Rockbox is about having fun. Being in freeze with no clear end in sight is a drain on morale and enthusiasm, which is not how we want Rockbox to feel. So we decided to end the freeze now and unlock the doors to creativity and programming joy.

Moodle is in a very different situation. But there are parallels to be drawn, especially about enthusiasm and "core values." Which specifically doesn't mean that Moodle should stagnate. But the whole Moodle community (developers, learners, trainers, institutional adopters, power users, etc.) can focus on making sense of what Moodle can and should be or become.
Despite the wealth of documentation about Moodle (which I find more useful than that of other LMS), there is a need at the very basic level to explain what Moodle does. Much of it is very obvious to users and much of it depends on context. Yet there might be too much unspoken agreement about what Moodle is good for (apart from typical course management stuff).

Hence my frequent comments about the possible connection between Moodle and social networking. Moodle doesn't need to be used as SNS. But I sincerely find the constructivist philosophy behind Moodle to be compatible with social networking features such as custom groups and elaborate profiles. Somehow, others seem to agree which can mean that I'm not completely off-track. With all the "Moodle outside schools" threads, these discussions are quite important to have. I know the Sakai people have been having those same discussions.

One thing to be noticed about software development (from an outsider's perspective) is that the featuritis graph eventually leads to completely new models (a phoenix-like rebirth of implementations). Those new models might not be better than the previous ones but they clearly show that not all needs are being fulfilled.
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In reply to Benny Hill

Re: PowerPoint and Teacing Effectiveness?

by Benny Hill -

effectively developed slides can generate discussion

If there are no questions, class dismissed wink

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In reply to Benny Hill

Re: PowerPoint and Teacing Effectiveness?

by Alexandre Enkerli -
Actually, Benny, do you have examples in mind, of effectively developed slides which helped generate discussion?
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In reply to Alexandre Enkerli

"Learning Materials" (was: PPT)

by Alexandre Enkerli -
Oops!
Either I subconsciously like to open cans of worms or I just have a knack for pushing buttons...

I really like many of the things said in this thread and feel st00pid about my typo in the title. Was just sending that post as a knee-jerk reaction, I guess.

This thread almost had the effect of an intervention, on me. Maybe my use of bullet points on slides is not as appropriate as it should be. As a victim of Steve Jobs's RDF, I would prefer doing Jobs-style (or Lessig-style) presentations, instead of following bullet points on slides.
My main excuse to use slides is that I'm really absent-minded and I tend to go on tangents. Slides help me improvise my lectures as they: remind me of what I want to discuss, are easy to time, are easy to read while lecturing, and are clearly structured.
Some of my most honest students have told me (in course evaluations) that I should dispense with slides. The reason I still use slides is pretty much because other students react strongly if I go too far on a tangent and they don't know where I'm going. With a slide, they can at least tell where I'm at.

But lecturing is just one part of the story.
I just gave my last lecture of the semester. Only lectured for a short period of time as the rest of the course meeting was devoted to preparing students for the exam. The highlight today was that I was able to build up exam questions with a relatively large number of students. Those questions will be on the final exam and I'm convinced that the process helped students way beyond the scope of the exam.
Anyhoo...

Slides, lecture notes, textbooks, presentations, lessons, podcasts, wikis, blogs, links, webpages... All of these are pretty much what I would call "learning materials." Been thinking quite a lot about learning materials recently and will be holding a session on learning materials at the Spirit of Inquiry conference organised by McGraw-Hill/Ryerson and Concordia. My main ideas with those learning materials are that they can be free (as in speech and/or as in beer), open (access, -ended), and flexible (customizable). I'd like participants at the conference to have fun with these ideas on learning matetrials. Mashing up on mashups and mash-ups, Lessig's Free Culture and Creative Commons, Wesch's "Web 2.0" video ethnography, Baraniuk's free coursework materials, MIT's OpenCourseWare, Wired Magazine's Radical Transparency, and the Cluetrain legacy.

There are technical issues and Moodle can help. For instance, with editing and repurposing content.
I still don't have the perfect workflow which would allow me to use outlines to produce both slides and lecture notes at the same time, post everything on Moodle, link everything with podcasts, collaboratively edit content, etc.
A friend has been using ProfCast with great success. Another friend recently showed me a neat script that he hacked together which allows for seamless integration of wiki-like markup and slide structure. Previously, I've used OmniOutliner with LaTeX, HTML, Keynote, and other file formats (including PPT). I tried Hans Hagen's ConTeXt with little success. I've even started to think that OneNote 2007 might provide a solution. Zoho Notebook looks promising, especially if it can integrate with Zoho Show.

Many of us do a lot of things with our "learning materials." From producing self-paced slideshows to collaboratively editing textbooks. The content itself can be fairly simple. File formats abound to make it easy for anybody to work with this type of material. Maybe Moodle can help people understand that it's not just a question of coding in some HTML, Flash, or SCORM.
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