Teacher in Development

Via Explorations in Learning: Powerpoint and Sage vs. Guide explores some thought provoking research around the use of powerpoint as an education tool…primarily what not to do with Powerpoint.

So if you want to overload your students,  you simply should throw up some slides with lots of text, zero images, and read the slide text - word for word - to your class. I think you’ll be impressed with the effecient speed at which you can throw your student’s brains into flatline.

“…people don’t process the same information as effectively when it’s presented both verbally and in written form. With respect to Powerpoint, then, you don’t want to just read words off a slide.” (Nelson,Powerpoint and Sage vs. Guide )

If you use Powerpoint in your classroom, or in any other environment, you should take a peek at what this article has to say.

Some key points that I took away:

• Don’t read your powerpoint slides. Speak about them.
• Don’t speak and have audience read at the same time. (Maybe this goes against typical ESL classroom practice of having students read text out loud - what do you think? Are we overloading when we do this? very often Students say that they either focus on correct pronunciation to the expense of understanding what they are reading, perhaps this is explained by the overloading idea?? To fix this, we could just ask students to read silently and then talk about what they read?
• Give students the answers - reduces “memory load” and promotes learning. Grammar rules: I wonder if this would mean showing sentences with the grammar rule in action, and invite students to notice it??

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