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Smart boards are completely outdated and anything that can be done on a smart board can be done better with just a projector and software like doceri.
As for PowerPoint style lecturing dismissing it completely is as bad an idea as embracing it completely. It's a tool nothing more.
As for those with their bullet point phobia. Again nothing inherently wrong with bullet points. For example a lecture on natural selection should have the three postulates (and no they don't need to be complete sentences) bulleted and then the lecturer explains them.
For all of you who hate this style of lecture and prefer someone,like the author in the article, who just talks many, many people not only hate that type of lecture but don't have a learning style that corresponds well to it. I learn best by reading not by listening, a well designed PowerPoint anchors a lecture. Same goes for visual learners. Audio learners are not the only ones out there and given that lectures are already auditory a PowerPoint for the rest of us is just downright fair in many situations.
I work mostly with little kids and the smartboard is like having another center in the classroom. It works well for small children who do not have the necessary coordination for using small-sized devices and many of the preloaded activities are age-appropriate. They can use the smartboard activity independently, while others are at the blocks or manipulatives. I don't have bullet point phobia, but I could write down and make my own bullets, if that's what I wanted to do, faster than opening up the software, typing it in, etc. on a piece of paper or on a blackboard or whiteboard. People seem to think that teachers never wrote down phrases or titles, etc. before projectors and powerpoint. I can learn new things without the crutch of needing visual stimulation, such as designs and pretty colors, but as others pointed out, each succeeding generation seems to need a greater form of entertainment to keep them focused and it has to be very short-that includes having print surrounded with lots of white space.
Seriously, Powerpoint is a bogeyman, now? Educators have always used visual aids: overhead projectors, slide shows, and the like. I don't recall there being any public outcry about that. Is this part of some anti-technology thing?
I work mostly with little kids and the smartboard is like having another center in the classroom. It works well for small children who do not have the necessary coordination for using small-sized devices and many of the preloaded activities are age-appropriate. They can use the smartboard activity independently, while others are at the blocks or manipulatives. I don't have bullet point phobia, but I could write down and make my own bullets, if that's what I wanted to do, faster than opening up the software, typing it in, etc. on a piece of paper or on a blackboard or whiteboard. People seem to think that teachers never wrote down phrases or titles, etc. before projectors and powerpoint. I can learn new things without the crutch of needing visual stimulation, such as designs and pretty colors, but as others pointed out, each succeeding generation seems to need a greater form of entertainment to keep them focused and it has to be very short-that includes having print surrounded with lots of white space.
Have you seen a small child use an ipad? It is nearly native.
I was taught doceri by an elementary school teacher who used it with great success in 2nd grade. Anyway, if it works for your kids great.
My point is and remains, a smartboard is not inherently better than powerpoint as either a software or hardware and as a system has rivals that maybe both more intuitive and more open to other uses.
Seriously, Powerpoint is a bogeyman, now? Educators have always used visual aids: overhead projectors, slide shows, and the like. I don't recall there being any public outcry about that. Is this part of some anti-technology thing?
Really? Those things are so much a running joke, they're often used in sitcoms as part of the dumb teacher skit. The "Mrs Magilicuddy is out sick so coach is subbing." To which the response is usually something like "Fantastic, nothing but film strips the rest of the week." Why?" "With the lights out it's easier to sleep/make out with MaryJane/whatever gag."
Heck, I still remember the Bell & Howell filmstrip projectors and how we kids loved them because they meant no lecture, homework, or tests. And I also remember years later as a college student how much I hated overheads because the teacher would write on a transparency, then take it off and start a new one faster than we could take notes.
I'd rep you 100 times for this but I can only rep this once. It's Google that's making us dumb. Kids don't think they google answers and they actually think the person who FINDS it first is the smartest.
I agree on attention spans too. I read somewhere that the average person stays on a web page something like 5 seconds when researching a topic before moving on and rarely comes back to the page. The internet is presenting information in bits and bytes and that's what our brains now expect. I cringe when people tout technology as the savior of education because I see it dummying down our kids. They don't remember things because they can look them up but you can't THINK about things that aren't IN YOUR HEAD.
I agree. Schools think they are promoting critical thinking but it is impossible when they have so little understanding of topics.
Quote:
Originally Posted by tnff
Accident investigations look at not only the direct causes, but the contributing causes. In many cases the contributing causes are more important because they are simultaneously more subtle and more impacting. That's because they set the stage for more accidents.
The Columbia Accident Investigation Report, page 191, describes the communication problems caused by PowerPoint. I believe the Return to Flight team also had something to say about PowerPoint, but I don't have that in front of me.
I've spent my career in this field and have often seen PowerPoint lead to bad decisions. It creates the illusion of communication when in fact none has occurred. It is often used and proliferated well beyond the initial briefing, but without the words of the speaker. So those phrases that were nice memory joggers during the presentation become meaningless a day later -- the detailed explanatory material is no longer there. Also, PowerPoint is not interactive between the presenter and audience; it is passive. While yes, a well done PowerPoint can supplement a well crafted report, it cannot take the place of it.
When did anyone suggest a PowerPoint presentation could take the place of a well crafted report? The topic of this thread is using PowerPoint in education. There is a big difference between presenting information in a classroom and designing a space shuttle.
I also remember reading that one of the contributing causes of the Challenger and Columbia disasters was groupthink.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Chance and Change
PowerPoint's are great if and as the research work is done to put it together. The anti PowerPoint people may well have not viewed a well prepared presentation.
I use it, and the results are great. One needs to know their subject material then they can use it as the support tool which it is. Some people are simply "slide clickers", who don't expound on their subject material or know how to use the range of attributes within the program.
sharing information is sharing information, one has to understand the benefits of PowerPoint, as the TOOL which it is, and there should be very little problem or kick back in utilizing the program.
But, its like social media in some ways, people are so filled with "Short Attention Span Mentality", they are not going to get any benefit from anything, and especially if it consist of more than 120 character. Some people can't digest compound thoughts, nor to connect parallel content, no matter how its presented.
Society now is made into a level of comprehension sickness due to the incessant training which promotes "short attention spans".
Even in blog post, if its over three lines of text, their minds can't handle it and they get that overwhelmed feeling and they resist indulging.
Short Attention Spans, leads to many snap judgments and incomplete thought processes.The tech world loves it, because they can simply limit the capabilities of software tech, and within six months add a few feature and sell it as a major innovation and people rush out to buy it, never knowing the previous version likely had the capability, except the developer locked it out, because it knows peoples short attention span, is a money maker in the context of rolling out a more functional version.
TV commercials are good at training people to adopt a short attention span.
Sadly, today many are less astute than they know, they engage "short attention scans of subject material" looking for dynamic's and miss the content which clarifies what is and how is something conveying the intricate data to support the attracting dynamics.
I agree that a presenter or teacher who can't expound on the material they are presenting is going to be a poor presenter/teacher no matter what tool they are using.
I agree the short attention span mentality but I don't think PowerPoint has anything to do with it. I think students develop a short attention span because they do not read. High school student today rarely read textbooks. They use textbooks to look up answers to the endless number of worksheets that teachers use. If they are given a two page single spaced document and asked to read in class, many will complain that it is too much to read. Even if they finish reading it, they will recall little of what they just read.
What is one going to do when they need to take notes and it is not a class?
In my past as an intelligence officer, I learned to take notes so I can present them (or a report) to my superiors so that they could know as if they had actually been there. As I say when I go out to survey a location, "CASE THE JOINT!".
Students may be learning the information to be able to pass the test, but are they learning how to process information in the real world?
Students may be learning the information to be able to pass the test, but are they learning how to process information in the real world?
Yes. That's what you do in college. You read opposing arguments, discuss them, develop a coherent view supported by empirical evidence and present on it. By the time you've completed your undergrad, you've done it hundreds of times. At which point your ready for the real world where you present original arguments in a peer reviewed fashion.
Yes. That's what you do in college. You read opposing arguments, discuss them, develop a coherent view supported by empirical evidence and present on it. By the time you've completed your undergrad, you've done it hundreds of times. At which point your ready for the real world where you present original arguments in a peer reviewed fashion.
Well, yes, but I was asking a bit more.
Are we teaching college students so they can can walk into a room where an exercise is going on and take notes of what happened? Can they go to a conference where during a workshop, not only do they take notes, but they have understood it enough to be able to ask the presenter questions afterwards? Can I send them to a country where religion prohibits certain technologies and I need them to come back with a report of what is going on there?
Are we teaching students to be able to go out into the world and come back with useable information?
Seriously, Powerpoint is a bogeyman, now? Educators have always used visual aids: overhead projectors, slide shows, and the like. I don't recall there being any public outcry about that. Is this part of some anti-technology thing?
Much ado about nothing.
We did use those things. I used those things. But they were like punctuation - they weren't the entire class. In graduate school - in education! - I had teachers who taught whole classes by presenting a detailed powerpoint slide show which they read aloud to the class, slide by slide, word by agonizing word. We never did that with transparencies. I don't know why pp lends itself more readily to abuse, but it does. Perhaps because it was too cumbersome to stand at the projector and swap page after page of transparency, or maybe they think the fact that powerpoint has color and cute animations makes this kind of presentation less boring or more meaningful than a black and white transparency show. But it doesn't.
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Educators have always used visual aids: overhead projectors, slide shows, and the like. I don't recall there being any public outcry about that. Is this part of some anti-technology thing?
I'd rep you 100 times for this but I can only rep this once. It's Google that's making us dumb. Kids don't think they google answers and they actually think the person who FINDS it first is the smartest. 
