"Death by PowerPoint" :)
Our textbook comes with PowerPoint slides to accompany the material, but my students pretty much groan when I put those up on the board, because many of them have been "PowerPointed" to death. I think PowerPoint is a wonderful graphic tool, but I am finding my students often take the attitude: "Oh, not another one!"
I have found some of the videos on the OpenCourseware sites to be valuable (along with streaming video), but those are not available for all content areas.
My students in oral communications are required to use a visual aid, and most of them choose PowerPoint. The 10/20/30 rule is a good one, and many of those general guidelines included within this module are also in their textbooks. Many students want to play with animations, without realizing how distracting that can be.
Hi Anthony:
There almost needs to be a course for instructors not familiar with giving an effective presenatation to help train them to do so. This can apply to PPT, or any other visual media used to give information to students.
Regards, Barry
As with any other instructional tool, PP can be overused. Employing a diversified set of tools per semester is probably the best idea.
I tend to use some of the powerpoints from the textbooks but I also try and find interesting videos to enhance the students learning. For instance, when I teach IV's to pharmacy students I lecture on the different routes of administration then I show a appropriate video a person getting a medication administered through that route.
