I recently picked up Brain Rules by John Medina again, and was inspired by one of his chapter-summarizing ideas – to burn your current PowerPoint presentations and start over. I decided to let him help me say more…
Everyone has heard the phrase, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” Turns out, it’s true. Written language has evolved over the years from cave drawings and paintings. Indeed, text is nothing more than a series of very simple pictures. For this reason, the brain takes considerably longer to decode strings of text (i.e. bulleted sentences) than it does single words or short statements. In other words, pictures are faster at conveying information than words – at least when we’re talking about concepts and ideas (detailed data is difficult to convey via words or pictures – which is why scientific papers turn to tables and charts).
Here are two steps you can take to use less text.
1. Whittle your titles. Take the time to reduce slide titles down to their core meaning. This will remove clutter and superfluous information that can confuse and distract your students. Use short, concise titles to get the main point across. Then fill in the gaps while lecturing. This allows the student to understand the context which aids in better retention of the details you provide.
Oftentimes, I find a lot of redundancy in slide titles throughout a lecture. For instance, “Using Peer Mentors to Drive Students Toward Deeper Learning and Productive Reflective Writing” could become “Peer Mentors Improve Learning.”
“What Do Professional Learning Communities Have to Do With Factoring A Trinomial?” could become “Math and Society” or “The Role of Math in Society.”
“A History of the Culture of Tea in Britain” might be simplified as “British Tea Culture.”
2. Remove bulleted text. Bullets on a slide often serve only as lecture notes to prompt the professor and are not necessary for the students. Sure, they need to know the information, but you’re going to explain the important concepts during the lecture. If you need those notes while you’re presenting, cut and paste them into the Presenter Notes in your slideware. You can then print off the slides as lecture notes or use Presenter Mode while in class. Remember, guns don’t kill people, bullets kill people.
Yesterday, Apple released the iPad, “A Magical and Revolutionary Product at an Unbelievable Price.” It was an instant hit, selling an estimated 600,000 – 700,000 in the first day.
As a true Apple fan, I spent a few hours playing with the iPad, on the day of its release, wondering what it could mean for the future of presentations in the classroom. Let me tell you that I am very excited.
Some people have criticized it as nothing more than a large iPod Touch. Frankly, they’re not far off, and that is precisely why I am so excited. The iPhone/iPod Touch interface is very intuitive and natural to use. Because there is no mouse – you just use your finger – the learning curve is flattened out.
So why not just use an iPod Touch? There are two things that make the iPad different. First, it has more power. The iPad is more responsive and capable of running programs that require a lot of processing power. Second, the iPad has a 9″ screen, and it is beautiful. It really becomes a window to another world.
Ok, so it’s a fancy new gadget. So what? I’m glad you asked, because there’s no point in getting excited over something new unless it has real, practical value. While I believe the iPad will make a huge impact in the education system, it probably don’t have to go out and grab one just yet. Start saving your pennies, finish this semester, and put together a proposal for your school’s IT department to convince them to get you one for the next school year. In the meantime, here are some things to start thinking about.
The iPad will be the perfect student companion. While the on-screen keyboard will take getting used to, third party products can turn the iPad into a very useable digital notebook. Combine the Pogo Sketch Stylus with an app such as Mental Note and a student can type, draw, sketch, or write their notes on the iPad while recording audio from the lecture.
Apple provides a free app called iBookstore for the iPad which allows you to search and download electronic books much like on Amazon’s Kindle. However, instead of grayscale text, you get beautifully formatted, multimedia enhanced, full color books. Major textbook publishers have already announced plans to release their titles on the iPad. No more 20 pound backpacks for 80 pound 6th graders!
With it’s iPod app for music and video, as well as the built in YouTube app, the iPad could be the single device to organize all of the multimedia content a teacher could want. Record a podcast for the kids to listen to at the beginning of class, download the most recent NOVA Science video podcast, watch a chemistry experiment blow up on YouTube, or play classical music during free reading time. Have a full screen seating chart with pictures and tap on each student that is absent. At a starting price of $499, it wouldn’t be surprising to see iPads replace the full desktop in each classroom. And at 1.5 lbs, most teachers wouldn’t hesitate to bring work home with them.
While I comment on all aspects of education, this site is really about creating great presentations in the classroom, and the iPad will be a fabulous tool in that regard. Beyond the multimedia options I have already mentioned, Apple has released a version of Keynote designed specifically for the iPad. In addition, you can purchase a VGA connector to use the iPad with a projector. The device will change to a presenter display and show the presentation on the screen. While Microsoft has no plans to create a version of Office for the iPad, Keynote will open PowerPoint documents that have been e-mailed to the device.
New to the touch version of Keynote are on screen presenter tools. With a simple swipe from the left of the screen you can pull up all of the slides in the presentation and jump forward or back. Watch the first minute of this video of a hands-on demo to see it in action.
(Update: As you can see in the video, the demo shows an on screen drawing feature which allows you to annotate your slides much like on a white board or as sports commentators do. This feature is not functional on release versions of the iPad.)
Creating presentations on the iPad is a breeze and a delight. You can move objects just by touching them and add smooth transitions with ease. Typing isn’t too difficult, but that doesn’t matter because you use very little text anyway. Photos can be imported from your iPhoto library or saved to the device via e-mail.
To learn more about iPad, visit Apple’s website and watch these Guided Tours.
Every year, each college at BYU selects an Honored Alumni to return and speak to current students and faculty. Last fall I was privileged to work with Dr. Steven Baugh in preparing his presentation as Honored Alumnus of the College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences. Dr. Baugh is director of the CITES department of the McKay School of Education, and has taught math for a number of years. His interest with mathematics began with his father, who was also an accomplished mathematician and high school teacher.
Working with Dr. Baugh was easy from the beginning, not only for his humility and willingness to accept suggestions, but also for what he provided me with as an outline. Unlike most presenters, Steven had not not yet created a set of slides. Instead he had simply typed up an outline of the things he wished to discuss. This made it very easy for us brainstorm the most effective presentation and create slides that best illustrated his message.
I have included a selection of slides as well as an animated version for you to view below.
Some people just shouldn’t be teachers. Then there is Marta Adair.
Professor Adair is a biology professor, chair of science education, and Director for Education in the Bean Life Science Museum at BYU. She truly understands what it means to be a teacher and what her role is in the classroom. I witnessed something in her Intro to Biology class that illustrates what a wonderful teacher she is.
She began a discussion on the topic of carbon dioxide emissions and global warming, a controversial subject wherever it takes place. A couple of students raised some questions that Professor Adair answered as best she could. Another student, however, raised his hand to share a few additional comments on the matter. It turns out that he had spent around 300 hours researching energy, carbon emissions, and nuclear power as a member of a debate team a year ago. His comments sparked additional questions from his peers. Realizing she was unprepared to answer such questions, she half-jokingly said – as many professors do – “Why don’t you just come up here and answer these questions?” to the student who knew a little more about the subject. Then a somewhat astonishing thing happened. The student stood from his seat, and Marta Adair took his place.
For the next 20–30 minutes, the class discussed the topics answering each others questions with help from two teachers assistants, the student now at the front of the room, and a few interjected comments from Professor Adair seated among the students.
As I sat there observing these interactions I was amazed at how naturally the conversation moved from one relevant topic to the next. The students, mostly freshman and sophomores, asked intelligent questions and offered information they found helpful. I could sense a curiosity that was fueled by the open and candid atmosphere. There was an organic and harmonious progression of thought. Minds were enlightened, misconceptions corrected, consciousness raised.
This experience contrasts those I have had on countless occasions in classrooms where the professor incessantly lectures on a pre-established set of “learning objectives”.
Marta doesn’t have a set agenda for her class, a list of topics that she must cover during the semester, or an established list of facts that her students must memorized. Yet, never before in my time as a student have I had such a desire to investigate, inquire, learn, and share what I know about a subject.
I once heard, in a meeting full of educators, that the Latin root educare means “to lead out.” Why, then, does the general approach to teaching seem so very opposite to that image? Instead, I see teachers who effectively push or pull their students into a narrow and specific group of concepts that have (questionably) been determined to be more important than any other, forcing them to memorize facts without understanding their meaning. How restrictive and boring!
Attempts to understand the broader picture and explore connecting facts are most often received with a look of contempt and the instruction to not “worry about that,” usually because “it won’t be on the test.” How narrow minded and empty of purpose!
The atmosphere in Professor Adair’s class is very different. She encourages her students to ask questions and rejoices when a student connects personal experiences with the topics discussed in class. Real, practical learning takes place and it is exciting!
I am reminded of the call by Jay H. Lehr regarding conference presenters:
“Let there be an end to incredibly boring [teachers]! They are not sophisticated, erudite, [experts] speaking above our intellectual capability; they are arrogant, thoughtless individuals who insult our very presence by their lack of concern for our desire to benefit from a [class] which we chose to attend.”
Sir Ken Robinson, a passionate educator himself, illustrates the great flaw in the ubiquitous prescription of content.
“It is education that is meant to take us into [a] future that we can’t grasp. Children starting school [in 2006] will be retiring in 2065. Nobody has a clue [...] what the world will look like in five years’ time. And yet we’re meant to be educating them for it.”
In a world that progresses as fast as ours, how can we be sure that the content we prescribe for the younger generations will be relevant in an unpredictable future?
Marta Adair is a leader. She cares for her students. Evidence to this fact can be found in the 60 students who she mentors, the effort she puts into the education program at the museum, and her family life. For me, her concern for the education of her students was manifest the moment she humbly became the student and allowed a student to become the teacher.
