Hmmm…interesting. This research seems to lend support for the idea NOT to use PowerPoint as a way to place bulleted text on the board but rather images and diagrams and animations that illustrate the idea. So, let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater and get rid of PowerPoint. Let’s use it in ways that stimulate the brains of our students not ways that overload their brains and make learning more difficult.
A couple of recent articles about the amount of Digital Content in the world caught my eye…
More and more traditional desktop applications are finding ways of living on the web via the Web 2.0 hype. (Please bear in mind that I’m going with the flow of people who are classifying the next generation of web applications with this sometimes publicly scorned misnomer). What this means is that software that you normally have to purchase from a retail store contained in a shrink-wrapped box or download an installer file from a website can now be hosted by the developer on a web page. I suppose this is good and bad for a few reasons:
I’ve not had a chance to fully play with this yet to see the implications, but what it does indicate is a move towards media that just works regardless of your platform of choice. QuickTime, Flash, RealMedia, and Windows Media have been duking it out for a while now. Microsoft is now providing free of charge a component you can download that allows Mac users using QuickTime as their player of choice to be able to play Windows Media Files. It’s actually made by a company called Flip4Mac and you can purchase their full version if you want to CREATE WMV files on your Mac. (more…)
PowerPoint often gets bad reviews by educational psychologists and graphic designers such as Edward Tufte (mentioned in Brad’s earlier blog). They claim it is harming teaching and learning. I would like to address the criticisms of Edward Tufte as listed in the Wikipedia article about him. (more…)