On What it Would Mean to Really Teach “Naked”
Not surprisingly, given my inclination to think about ways that technology can help education, this week I have received more than a few emails from colleagues pointing to an article at The Chronicle of Higher Ed about a professor at SMU, Jose Bowen, who likes to encourage what he calls, Teaching Naked, or more descriptively teaching without technology. More than a few of these emails seemed to be gleeful: “look here,” “see you and your technology is not all its cracked up to be,” “teachers just need to get back to the basics,” “this guy is doing it right.” (Okay none of those are exact quotes but the tone is correct.) Even the Dallas Observer took a stab at making a connection. Brief Aside: Dear Dallas Observer, I have never said the best way to engage students is by having them “tweet” through class. I would never say something so ridiculous. (I have said that “a” way to engage students might be to use Twitter, or more broadly social media technology, but that’s a far cry from “best.”)
But, what is more striking to me is that otherwise capable intellectuals, ones who are excellent readers, make a career out of analyzing text, seem to have not read the piece by Jeff Young, and instead jump to a conclusion about what it says. Indeed, I would actually agree with Jose, or at least agree with a large part of what he says. The article, and Jose’s take, are not that technology is bad or evil, it is far more nuanced than this. Indeed the nuance is the important part, revealing what I believe is one of the central issues in teaching students today.
Let’s start with the initial premise: Students shouldn’t spend class time looking at boring PowerPoint lectures. Agreed. In fact I couldn’t agree more, PowerPoint is a horrible pedagogical tool, see my ongoing rant. PowerPoint as it is generally used is a poor pedagogical device. Collecting slides, and using PowerPoint as an amped up version of chalkboards and old carousel slide projectors is a really bad use of resources. As with Blackboard though, the issue is not the technology itself, but rather a poorly developed tool that tries to mimic old technology without really considering how the technology might actually change teaching practices.
Indeed as the article makes clear, Jose is not “anti-technology” he is just “anti” the way it is currently used. He uses podcasts and video games to teach. His approach is thoroughly technological. In fact the approach is a really smart one; by using technology he is able to deliver the “lecture” material outside of class time, and save the in class time for discussion and participation. This is not a story about a luddite professor, but rather about a professor who has developed an effective way to use technology in education.
In fact what Jose has done, is allowed technology to thoroughly change the way education happens, rather than just treat it as a supplemental, incremental change. Notice further down the article mentions that it was not that computers were completely removed from the class, creating a “tech free space,” but rather than classroom computers the tech budget is focused on getting professors laptops and helping them create podcast lectures. Bravo! I say. In fact the classroom space described (movable tables and chairs for in class discussion) is precisely the one we are using for EMAC here at UT Dallas.
This is what the Dallas Observer article, and all of those people emailing me this article miss, this approach is pretty close to the one I advocate: use tech to generate more discussion and outsource content delivery. In fact one of the reasons I like Twitter is the way it can foster discussion, especially in larger lecture style classrooms (as the article about SMU doesn’t makes clear they are dealing with 10-15 person classes). Technology isn’t good or bad, but it isn’t neutral either. It opens up new possibilities for engaging students, but if we simply use it to reproduce old pedagogies and student-teacher hierarchies—I’m looking at you PowerPoint and Blackboard—then we fail as educators. Certainly as the article points out there will be resistance, not the least of which comes from the students. Students who have been mostly educated in old instructional ways, sit in a desk face forward, learn the correct answer so you can perform on the test, teach to test etc., will be made uncomfortable by a classroom space where they have to take ownership of their own knowledge production, but that’s the point, to make them uncomfortable, to challenge them to learn better.
But, what really got me about this article is the term “naked,” which actually reveals the problem with the way this issue is being framed. This is probably where I would end up disagreeing with Jose, as I think his term “teaching naked” gets in the way, but to be sure it is far more a problem in the Dallas Observer story when they mischaracterize what he means by “naked.” Because, no professor I know of is actually advocating teaching without technology. Sure, I know a lot of faculty who say they don’t want computers in their classrooms, or projectors, who don’t use PowerPoint and refuse to adopt WebCT, whose only computer interaction with the class comes in posting grades (which they do only because the administration forces them to do it). This luddite teaching philosophy (and lest you think this is a strawman argument please come visit me sometime and I’ll introduce you to some folks), suggests that technology is bad for education and that we need to get back to basics.
But here’s the thing, to really be anti-technology these professors would have to really advocate teaching naked, and I mean that in the fullest sense of the term, as in teaching sans clothing. For, any teaching practice requires technology. Are we to imagine that these luddite professors disallow paper and pen from class? “Students should not take notes in class, the technology gets in the way of discussion.” Are we to imagine that they do not allow books in class? “No books, they get in the way of discussion.” Books, paper, pen, desks, chalkboards, whiteboards, all of these are technologies. In fact clothing itself is a technology, so if a professor really wanted to be against technology he would have to give up his tweed jacket and bow tie, because as a technology this might get in the way of the students learning, instead really go “naked” so as to better connect with the students.
Of course this is an absurd proposition, teaching, communicating, learning are thoroughly technological affairs, there is no learning without technology. The issue is not technology but using the technology well to teach our students. PowerPoint, generally speaking = bad. Blackboard generally speaking = bad. Podcasting lectures, distributing content to students openly in ways they can easily access = good. But I’ll even make the stronger claim here: Teaching without digital technology is an irresponsible pedagogy. Why? The future is digital, love it or hate it. We can argue later about whether or not this is a good or a bad thing. (Hint: the answer is both.) But to educate students, or to attempt to educate students without developing their digital literacy is to leave them ill prepared for their futures. You wouldn’t think of educating a student and not teaching them how to read, digital literacy is this crucial. In the future if you don’t know how to use this technology you will be “illiterate.” The problem with PowerPoint pedagogy is that it uncritically uses technology, doesn’t teach students to reflect on how technology shapes ways of knowing and learning. So, to simply eliminate PowerPoint and “go naked” is to not address the central issue. We can’t go back to “teaching the way it was,” because this will produce a generation of students who don’t know how to critically engage with, leverage, use, resist, these very technologies. Eliminating technology produces not the affect of a more engaged literate student populous, rather it produces the reverse, an ill informed, uncritical, unengaged student populous who will become at the very best passive consumers of the technology being resisted, and at the worst its willing victims.
July 24th, 2009 at 2:15 pm
You mention movable, modular furniture (chairs and tables) just in passing above, but I think that when discussing digital technology with those who are skeptical of it, it can be important to point out that very simple non-digital technologies (wheels on tables and chairs) can be incredibly transformative.
We, too, have a classroom equipped with modular, wheeled furniture, and the ability to reconfigure the furniture in a variety of ways (and very quickly) can change the classroom dynamics in dramatic ways, increasing opportunities for student discussion and engagement.
If something as simple as wheels can be transformative, how much more so can digital technologies enhance education?
July 24th, 2009 at 8:01 pm
Movable furniture can induce another layer of problems — such as the semester where every T morning I came into my 8am class’s room with more than half the tables shoved against one wall because it fit the predilections of someone who taught over the weekend.
It strikes me that semicircular (sometimes called theater-like) seating is a reasonable compromise, allowing both presentation and discussion.
July 25th, 2009 at 12:08 am
I agree with your (and Jose Bowen’s and others’) critique of the way technology, especially PPT, is generally used. But perhaps you are a bit too generous about the similarities between your and Bowen’s positions in one regard: As a dean at SMU, he has actually removed computers from the classroom. It seems to me that this policy, rather than encouraging the appropriate use of technology in the classroom, leads to what you call the irresponsible pedagogy of teaching without digital technology. Wouldn’t it be far better to give your faculty the resources to use digital tools well? Simply removing computers from lecture halls won’t turn bad professors into good ones.
July 25th, 2009 at 2:02 am
In places you appear balanced — technology is neither good nor bad nor neutral. Agreed. But you also appear doctrinaire in places — the points about old pedagogies and hierarchies. Not everything about these things are bad and ineffective in class. Nor is it every instructor’s duty to teach technological literacy to every student. If a college allows students to go through with out being technologically literate, so much the worse for the college, but it doesn’t in the least follow that every instructor has an obligation to teach such literacy. If a college allows students to go through w/out knowing math, so much the worse for the college, but it doesn’t in the least follow that every instructor has an obligation to teach math. To the extent that the use of technology can facilitate the collaborative work of learning, great. But that doesn’t mean that it must be used, nor does it mean that not using it renders that particular class less effective than it might have been if only used technology. Boloney. There are very effective pedagogical techniques employed by superb instructors that use nothing more than chat and chalk.
July 25th, 2009 at 3:47 pm
@Stephen. I used to agree with the point you are making here, that digital literacy is one skill among a host of skills that students should learn in the academy. So that say for example as First Year Students they would take Math, English, Biology, and Media Studies. But I have since changed my view on this. I think the digital so radically transforms the way that we teach and learn that to not recognize this, and continue to teach in the old way misses an opportunity to engage students and probably makes our teaching irrelevant. It seems to me that most of the old ways of teaching are predicated on a scarcity of knowledge, the idea that an expert can stand at the front of the classroom and disseminate information which the students soak up, because this is the best way to learn. I think technology renders that model pointless. And I think this is true across disciplines, that all disciplines will have to think/rethink how they use technology to teach. Notice that in your response you fall into the very dichotomy my post resists. You write “nor does it mean that not using it renders that particular class less effective than it might have been if only used technology.” Again all classes use technology, it is just a matter of what technology they use, and if they use “digital networked technology.” Now I am not saying that every class should use Facebook (I haven’t figured out if this has useful pedagogical implications yet, I am skeptical), but I am saying that every discipline will need to rethink how it teaches—this is what the digital means. Take your example of Math the discipline which it might seem ought to be the least transformed, where old models of instruction might continue to work. What if you reverse the model of instruction for the typical math class? Have “star” faculty (by star I mean instructional stars not research) record a lecture, have the students listen to the math lecture outside of class, and then come to class and work on the problem sets in class? Why should a student sit in a class and listen to a lecture that they can get delivered equally as well at home, on their own terms (studies show students learn better this way.) Or what of the use of clickers? Since students are coming to us used to interacting why not leverage that during class time? I am not saying every class should use every bit of tech, but what I am saying is that every class needs to recognize that the digital network fundamentally transforms the way we share, produce, and archive knowledge, and to treat it as if it has not (to teach in the old factory/industrial centered ways) guarantees our irrelevance and does a disservice to our students. The digital is not something that is supplemental, something that can be merely, tacked on, added on to the curriculum, it is a fundamental shift in the nature of knowledge.
@Lance Yes. I am sure that Jose and I would disagree about many things in terms of details, but I think we would agree on the large philosophic issue: that tech can be used to enhance learning in the classroom, and should not be used to reproduce old teaching methods. I probably want more computers in the class than he does, but I also have times where I require students to shut off all the computers and not be jacked into the net. Agreed removing computers won’t make bad instructors good ones, but stopping the PowerPoint madness is a useful first step.
@Sherman_Dorn and @Derek Furniture is one of my largest complaints. How do we expect students to take ownership of their learning when we place them in a factory modeled classroom. I use to appreciate the large table around which everyone sat (both from my undergrad and first few years of teaching), but there are not times when I want students to work in teams or change that up so the moveable furniture works best for me. I don’t mind taking two minutes at the beginning of class to fix this, or better yet having students return tables at the end to some default configuration.
July 25th, 2009 at 4:15 pm
Here’s your own dichotomy: either we embrace the digital revolution or we teach using the old factory, industrial model that reproduces bad hierarchies. Not so fast. First, faculty members can just as easily use the new technology and still work under previous models. Second, faculty have already gone beyond the “factory, industrial” models w/out digital technologies. In philosophy, for example, faculty members often adopt the socratic method, which focuses on a pedagogy of participation and collaboration. The use of digital technology, whether wiki or blog or whatever, just offers more options to extend this model. But it can be done very effectively with older technologies — chalk and paper.
July 25th, 2009 at 4:18 pm
Oh, and one more thing. I think that in many cases, is it entirely appropriate and effective for the faculty member to play the role of authoritative font of information. It oughtn’t be used exclusively and when done so can work against the learning objectives. I integrate it with other, more collaborative techniques.
July 25th, 2009 at 9:14 pm
@Sherman and @dave: There’s a sign in many of the rooms in which I teach that says something like, “At the end of class, please return the tables and chairs to their proper configuration.” This sign makes me laugh but also fume every time I see it. Who’s to say what the “proper” configuration of furniture in a classroom is? For that matter, how can the writer of the sign assume we all have the same notion of “proper”?
It seems to me that having a furniture configuration that is defined as “proper” or even the more neutral “default” privileges instructors who prefer that configuration. If I want to have tables of four during class, why must I be the one who not only sets up these tables but also puts them back in rows at the end of class? Why can’t every instructor who uses a room configure the furniture as they like it at the start of class, then leave it where it is at the end of class? Wouldn’t that be more equitable? And help instructors learn a little more about each other’s teaching styles?
On a different note, I feel obliged to say that, yes, using clickers in a mathematics course makes complete sense. Doing so can significantly transform the learning dynamic in productive ways.
Also, math is a field where technology can have a potentially game-changing impact. For instance, Wolfram|Alpha is an online, free computational tool that can handle all kinds of computations commonly assigned students in high school and undergraduate math courses. If there’s a free tool for doing those computations, why should we spend all our time teaching students to do them?
July 25th, 2009 at 9:51 pm
Furniture is definitely a technology that I wish I had more options for in the fall. Now that clicker receivers are the size of thumb drives, all our classrooms are equipped with LCD projectors, and our students have to buy laptops (as opposed to the desktop/laptop choice they had under the previous ownership policy) I can do pretty much anything I want with digital technology in the classroom. The exception is when what I want to do involves such low-tech things as having the students talk to each other and work together. Because my class’s enrollment is likely to top 80 students, I’m really limited in my classroom choices, but even if that weren’t the case, about the best I could do is get a classroom with crummy desks in them that maybe the students could group together. The future looks better, at least, as the GT Center for the Enhancement for the Teaching and Learning has finally gotten with Facilities to have input on the design of new classrooms. There’s a new building underway that will house two 250-seat classrooms that will have all seating at tables and the tables paired at the same level so students at the front table can turn around to work with those behind.
@Derek: I’m not sure how I feel about designating a “default” configuration. I think if you’ve got a classroom with tables and chairs, then a default configuration probably doesn’t need to come into play; classrooms can be reconfigured by each instructor. However, when dealing with a classroom where desks have been rearranged, it can be horribly messy for students to get in and out and just gets more chaotic over the course of the day if not straightened up after each class.
July 25th, 2009 at 9:51 pm
Great post–a much more substantive discussion of the “naked teaching” issue than I’ve seen elsewhere. I think your key, central point is that “if we simply use it to reproduce old pedagogies and student-teacher hierarchies—I’m looking at you PowerPoint and Blackboard—then we fail as educators.” I couldn’t agree more. If we simply use new technology to reinvent or automate the past, we’ve only succeeded in doing the same old thing in a new, possibly more expensive and complicated way. (Yes, I do believe that technology can yield efficiencies, but overheads, transparencies and markers are a heck of a lot cheaper that computers, Microsoft Office, and projectors.)
Regarding the “either or” debate, we’re now well beyond the point that we can think in terms of online v. offline, traditional v. technology-enhanced, etc. Whether we as educators create online or technology-enhanced aspects of our courses or class sessions, our students will add these dimensions to whatever we do. Whether we embrace and incorporate technology into our teaching or not, students are taking digital notes, texting each other about the class, creating Facebook study groups, etc. etc. etc. Sure, there might be days when a good old-fashioned, low-tech discussion is in order. But suggesting that such conversations can or should exist outside the realm of “new technology” is to ignore the potential to expand, enhance, and add enduring value to what we’re able to do in the limited “contact” time we have with our students.
July 26th, 2009 at 12:07 am
@dave: I’m with you 100% about “stopping the PowerPoint madness.” But the key word here is “madness” — the way it’s commonly used is counterproductive, but it can be used effectively. I’ve followed Garr Reynolds at Presentation Zen for several years, and thanks to him, students often remark how different — and helpful — my slides are during lectures. It’s not really that PowerPoint is evil, as Tufte would have it, but that the way people usually use it is. Here’s a good, recent example from Presentation Zen about effective ways of using slideware.
My point is that yanking computers out of classrooms to keep people from using PowerPoint badly sidesteps the important questions about pedagogy. As a matter of policy, wouldn’t it be more productive to provide support for profs to use classroom technology more effectively?
It’s also important to highlight a point you made about small class size at SMU, where Bowen is dean. The value of “teaching naked” surely depends a lot on the size and format of the course. I’m at a large state university where I teach a 700-student class about human sexuality and culture (where “teaching naked” would be particularly precarious). Yanking computers out of the lecture hall for that class would seriously harm the level of interaction I have with students, especially because I’d have to do without clickers (which are integrated with my PowerPoint slides). Being able to display, in real-time, the frequency distribution of students’ behaviors or attitudes about sexuality breaks down the traditional model of a lecture as one-way flow of knowledge and opens up conversation in a way that would otherwise be impossible in such a large class. So, in my case, having computers in the classroom allows me to have the kind of interaction with students that Bowen’s policy is meant to achieve at SMU.
July 26th, 2009 at 4:41 pm
@Stephen yes, I will own that dichotomy, or at least partially. I do think we face a choice, one is to hold onto a dying, outmoded model of education, another is to recognize a fundamental shift in the way knowledge is produced and transmitted, and figure out how to harness that change. (If you want to see what happens when you don’t do this just look at the newspaper industry, which I think in more than one way serves as a warning to the academia.) This doesn’t mean though that we should cast off all other instructional methods, as you I think rightly warn against. But I do think it means that even those “old” instructional methods might need to be adjusted.
Let’s take your example of the Socratic classroom and philosophy (but why have you switched the ground away from Math?). I think the Socratic classroom, as inherited from the Greeks, is probably one of those fictions we tell ourselves in the academy. But nevertheless lets take it on the surface. Are we to imagine that those who taught in the “Socratic Way” prior to the invention of the printing press did not alter their teaching practices in any way? That all around them with the growth of available print texts the teachers said, “No these books are new technology, we should stick with our old ways of instruction.” Perhaps some did, but the successful ones realized that the existence of books allowed them to significantly alter their classroom practice, and thus the modern University system was born (okay this is a really fast history but you get the point). Yes, we will still have dialogue in the classroom, sit in on any one of my classes and you will see I totally agree with you, but I don’t think we can anymore have a class based entirely on in class dialogue. This may mean podcast lectures, this may mean inviting others outside the academy to participate in the discussion . . .it may take many forms, but to be sure the classroom that remains unchanged by the digital network will be a quaint ineffective relic.
And, I’m all for authority, but lets not base it on a piece of paper that says I have a PhD, lets base it on something better, like you know actually knowing something . . .
re:furniture, not really that invested in how this gets implemented. I think there are probably various ways. I just want moveable furniture to accommodate a range of teaching and learning activities.
@Jon Precisely! Should have put that line in my original post. We are beyond the ability to differentiate between online v. offline. In fact I should have had that whole paragraph. (I often say, “be online or be irrelevant,” but your paragraph has a more nuanced way of making that point. Plus the more important point that students are going to use digital tech whether we use it or not.)
@Lance: totally agree with you re:PowerPoint. I have seen some very effective uses of PowerPoint, and often tell my grad students (future teachers) to read Presentation Zen. Slide show software can be used really effectively. My particular complaint with PowerPoint is that it is designed specifically against such uses, as a piece of software you have to work against it to design good presentations. This is why I prefer Keynote which operates more as image design software than document design, but ultimately this is a matter of preference. (There are not online slide software programs that mimic the image creation of Keynote over the document design of PowerPoint.) I think maybe we need a class for instructors about design, one component of which could be slide design and if you don’t pass you can’t use the software to teach (I am only partially kidding).
Also I think your point about class size is really important, there is a tremendous amount of privilege in the SMU example that goes unmentioned. Ultimately what we are talking about, or should be talking about is effective use of digital technology, not being naked or clothed.
July 26th, 2009 at 6:46 pm
No doubt, no doubt — socratic method is supported by using texts. And pens and paper and chalk and lights and well insulated rooms. So technology surrounds us and saturates the teaching/learning experience. Who is doubting that? Not me. My point is that podcasts et. al. can be usefully employed in the classroom, with all sorts of other digital technologies, but also that the learning objectives in many disciplines/courses can be achieved by ignoring podcasts and blogs and wikis. I employ all this stuff myself, mind you. But no one needs to apologize for not using these technologies when their classroom activities and methods are very effective. And regarding the authority via sheepskin …. please. There is an undeniable power structure between students and faculty that is the result of the asymmetry between what the student knows and what the instructor knows. Change the methods, the tools, the attitudes of those involved, the chairs in the room, whatever. There’s no getting around that relationship. (I recognizes an exception for places like Exeter and St. John’s. Somewhat.)
July 27th, 2009 at 2:41 pm
@dave: You make an important distinction between PowerPoint as document design versus Keynote as image design. I, too, prefer Keynote for the reasons you explain. Unfortunately, I’ve had to work around the default bad design in PPT because it’s what my university supports (and it integrates with clickers). So, here’s a friendly amendment to Bowen’s policy that I could get behind: yank all the PCs out of classrooms and replace them with Macs!
July 30th, 2009 at 12:24 am
yes, yes, yes! I can’t agree more with your sentiment, and it is so well expressed. I think it’s about the responsbile and appropriate use of technology. I think we need to ask what we want to achieve, rather than what technology we want to use in the classroom, and if technology can be used to help achieve that outcome, wonderful.
I also think we need to understand how our students want to express themselves. Just last night I was lamenting that I felt the technology (in this case BlackBoard) was getting in the way of my learning instead of helping it.
July 31st, 2009 at 1:40 am
In some institutions, perhaps particularly those with essentially open enrollment, it is a significant challenge to motivate students to participate in any learning outside of the classroom.
They often have difficulty finding the time to participate because of working 40+ hours a week, family responsibilities including care of their parents, illness — physical and mental — and long commutes. Their backgrounds do not include this kind of learning — they may never have done anything outside of a classroom in their entire educational experience. They often have never memorized a body of knowledge — they have not mastered their multiplication tables, the parts of speech, the systems of the body, or any foreign language. Frequently, they read at the 8th grade level or below.
Their goal is often not to learn more about the world. They are often understandably looking for a ticket to a job that has benefits. They come from families that do not value education unless it is practical.
Is technology something that will motivate them to do work outside of class and engage them in the “culture of college?” In my experience, this happens only if completing the task has a clear impact on whether the student will pass or fail. The work must be assessed, it must “count” for a lot, and they must feel that it makes a difference in their performance. The feedback has to be immediate. Podcasts are better than doing a reading, certainly, but if they can get by without doing either, then it doesn’t get done.
For those of us with intense teaching loads at non-research universities and no release time, it is a tremendous challenge to find the time to develop content to be delivered as new media whether it is clicker questions or podcasts or on-line quizzes. There are just so many hours in the day. And, it is not a static process — all of it has to be continually redone and updated.
–Laura
August 2nd, 2009 at 12:45 pm
The idea of “Teaching Naked” can make sense, especially when the teacher is not trained to use the tools. Death by PowerPoint etc.
So if a teacher does more harm using those tools but the school cannot or does not want to invest money in a proper formation for those teachers I think the concept of naked teaching makes sense.
Sure, the classes are old school (or maybe just back to the roots?) but this is what the teacher is used to do. He is good in doing exactly this.
We are in a transition period right now and changing a system from on to off never works. Let only those teachers use the new tools who can handle them, the others should use the classic tools. This way students get the best of both worlds.
This comment was originally posted on Open Education
August 16th, 2009 at 5:58 pm
Hello Dave… What I found out in my campaign for literacy is that most students cannot even read on a basic level let alone comprehend Derrida or anything advanced. I guess it would be fair to say that if people struggle with reading then “technology” is even more of a grasp. Not that you should teach typing and OS 101 in your classes, but I would imagine for students in general… a lot of things ideological are out of reach these days.
I would love to hear your in-classroom experience with students who struggle with the basics… writing, reading and technology… and how you incorporate basic lessons into your teaching while still working on the specific style of “reading” you like and find beneficial.
August 17th, 2009 at 9:12 pm
I fully agree with all the content of your post.
I use digital slide shows (“powerpoints”) in my teaching (I teach in secondary school), following the rhetorical principles of Garr Reynolds.
Furthermore, I have experimented an interesting interactive method: first, I present a chapter of my philosophy teaching program, and then I ask the students to reformulate and illustrate this content in digital slide shows.
The students search their llustrations on flickr.com (creative commons pictures) : this is a good way to make them reformulate and understand the content. Why ? Because to find the illustrations, they have to identify the pertinent keywords and tags (e.g. : what tag should be used to find a visual illustration for the idea of physical laws ? Possible answer : “equation”, i.e. a formula of a constant relation between elements).
Some examples (in French !) :
- http://profjourde.wordpress.com/2009/02/17/diaporamas-de-philosophie/
- http://profjourde.wordpress.com/2009/04/03/suffit-il-dobeir-aux-lois-pour-etre-juste/
September 10th, 2009 at 6:29 pm
Great post and very thought provoking! Though I disagree slightly on the PowerPoint “point”
. I think PowerPoints are enormously effective when used properly- which I define as being used for short animations, diagrams and pictures that help support or add entertainment to a lecture. You are definitely right though that when they are used as a substitute blackboard with just writing they are less than helpful.
I’ve also always thought it was interesting to think about how technology changes “what should be taught”. Once upon a time it made sense for students to sit and memorize large quantities of facts, but in today’s world it is such a simple task to look up information that perhaps it would be best to teach how to run effective searches and analysis… which again goes back to the importance of incorporating technology into education
.