PowerPoint presentations
I have mixed feelings about PP presentations, but archaeoastronomy has a nice quick tutorial on designing a well made presentation.
As blogs, PP slides are just tools. They’re not evil. A simily to “guns don’t kill people, people kill people”. I found most well made PP presentations rather dull - text wise. In my view, a PP slide should contain only elements you can’t draw on black (white?) board or describe with words (for example, try explaining lamprey’s circulatory system with words only) so that your listener stays focused most of the time. I remember some lectures where docent would basically “read” (he didn’t read, he knew everything by heart, apparently) and the sad part is we didn’t hear anything new, other than what was on the slides. End result was about 4 students in the classroom.
You are right, when the lecturer is just reading the text from the ppt screen, it’s dull for the audience, but on the other site we shouldn’t forget, that a ppt presentation no only for illustration, is a tool also for the teacher not to lose the thread of his ideas.
Comment by franc — 25 November, 2006 @ 14:52