Education Dive: PowerPoint is a time-tested lecture standby — Microsoft's Luke Lappala says around 90% of educators use it. Still, for many, it has become synonymous with boring lectures. Common complaints include slideshows that are read word-for-word by teachers and professors, which would be bad enough if teachers and professors didn't already have to contend with popular culture caricatures that have all the charisma of Ben Stein. (Those slides are probably just as exciting for you to read over and over again, too.)
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Lectures are hard. They are hard for the person giving the lecture, and they are hard for the person listening to the lecture. I think that all of these software have something unique to offer, but I don't really think they will make that much of a difference. What needs to happen in a successful lecture is be intriguing. The audience has to want to listen. This can be accomplished by catering the delivery of your information to the audience, or just being passionate about the topic. At the end of the day, just be interesting.
Lectures are some of the most boring class experiences that I have ever had. They are even worse when the whole class is the teacher just reading slides to you, worse then that is when the slides are word for word from the textbook. At this point just let me go home and read the book myself, at least then I can listen to music while I do it. I agree with Jason, I don't think that making the slides more visually intriguing will change how I feel about the lecture. What has to be done is making the information more exciting. If you cause the student to want to learn about it they will be more willing to do so. Fancy slides won't make me want to go to a lecture class but an interesting topic or dedicated and excited teacher keeping the information intriguing will make me go to class.
A few of these solutions are relatively interesting, however, I think Powerpoint has integrated itself into our education system in a way that doesn't look like its going to be changing anytime soon. I personally don't have a problem with that. While there is an endless supply of moans and groans about educators using Powerpoints, at the end of the day they tend to get the job done. Not to mention they force the lecturer to condense their ideas together into key points, which leads into the fact that Powerpoint is a far more efficient solution to our lecturing needs. I think the reason behind the "moans and groans" lies in the fact that lecturers, before technology, would have to write on a board to visually represent their ideas. Powerpoint is just like a board, however, it has a name for the procedure being used so there is a kind of homogenized feeling to the knowledge being transmitted to students.
Well, it's nice someone is trying to improve the lives of bored and nodding-off students, as well as help the self esteem of the teachers putting the students to sleep, but I'm afraid the technology is not the issue. Yes, you can come up with all kinds of presentation technology and fun theatrics for class, but the quality of the lecture will always come down to the same thing: the lecturer. If the teacher or professor is not invested in his or her material, there is not a chance the students will be, and that is too often the case. Let us not underestimate an educator's ability to read directly off of slides, even with all the fancy add-ons.
I never understood why a teacher would want to send a presentation to their students so they could "follow along." The screen is right in front of them- why don't they just look up two inches? IT seems like it would just disconnect students from the teacher even more than they already are and add more distractions. Having the presentations sent to a tablet in student's hands doesn't really save anything other than allowing them to stare at their laps instead of the board directly in front of them. The video for Display Note was especially weird- the kids weren't doing anything they couldn't have done normally, and they seemed totally disconnected from the lesson. There's also all of the complications that this is going to put lower-income students even farther behind their peers- what happens to the kid that can't afford their own fancy tablet?
I feel super conflicted about all of the technology in this article. First off, I expected the videos to show professors in a college or university setting. However, it seemed like at least two of these videos were in a high school or middle school setting. The fact that so much technology is now being used in the lower education systems is scary to me. Even if I were allowed to use such devices in my college classes, I would not want to. I think using computers and tablets in a classroom setting can be very distracting not only to the person using them, but also to everyone else in the classroom. Especially in big lectures, I have never been able to concentrate when there are other students around me with their laptops open. While I do like the idea of professors spicing up their presentations visually, I do not think these interactive models are useful in any way. Students should be learning how to take their own notes, and nothing is achieved by the teacher highlighting the presentation for them. I also think that Powerpoint does just fine as far as slide technology goes. As long as the professors knows how to design slides and does not simply create bullet points to read off of, the technology that we already have is suitable.
As I've said before, I think lectures are necessary, but only when they are truly the best way to convey the information. The "tools" discussed in this article all seem more like an advertisement. None of them seems like they would actually be that useful in the form of a lecture. To me they seem to take away from the reason that a lecture would be useful in the first place. And if you start going down that road, you shouldnt be giving a lecture in the first place. Lectures have their place in the world, but with all the bells and whistles that this article is discussing, the lecture would lose its credibility.
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