Last week I shared my thoughts on Kashi’s confusing use of slides to present what was essentially a document. In retrospect, I might have been a bit incorrect using the term ‘slideument’ which more accurately applies to a set of slides that read like a document.
While the content in both of these presentations is valuable, presenting it in slide form does not make sense, since they were dense with text, did not use many visuals, and flowed much more like an essay.
On the other hand, Kashi’s Yearbook celebrating 25 years was designed as a document but presented as slides… docuslides?? With this practice becoming common with online services such as SlideRocket and Slideshare, maybe it’s time to coin a new term to use in conjunction with slideument.
Kashi designed a beautiful document, but confusingly presented it as a slideshow
I received a monthly e-mail newsletter from SlideRocket, an online presentation service. Featured under their Presentation Showcase was a SlideRocket presentation created by Kashi, the San Diego based whole foods company. I clicked on the link and was taken to a beautifully designed, visually appealing presentation… I mean document. No, they were definitely slides… but, they’re in portrait orientation… wait a minute!! (You can view the presentation here.)
I was greatly confused. I liked what I was seeing, but felt weird clicking through slides that looked like 8.5×11″ pages. I quickly realized that I was looking at the ultimate incarnation of what Presentation Zen‘s Garr Reynolds calls a “slideument.” As Garr explains,
“Slides are slides. Documents are documents. They aren’t the same thing. Attempts to merge them result in what I call the ‘slideument’ (slide + document = slideument).”
Slideuments are a symptom of ignorance and, to a degree, laziness. Conference organizers tend to require their speakers to submit their presentation slides to be used as handouts or to otherwise be distributed to attendees. More and more, college professors distribute their lecture slides to their students as a form of notes – all but obliterating the need for students to pay attention in class and take notes. This creates a design dilemma, because well designed slides do not function well as a document. What these organizers and professors don’t understand is that the purpose of slides is completely different from the purpose of a document. Paraphrasing from Edward Tufte, slides have a low density of information while documents have a high density of information. In other words, slides are a visual supplement to the main medium of information (the lecturer) while documents are the main medium of information. Instead of combining the two into a slideument, they should be creating two separate versions of the document – one for reading, the other for presenting.
Kashi’s Yearbook celebrating their “25 Years of Passion for Positive Eating” was an incredibly well designed document full of great information divided into 7 sections. It was information dense. Presenting it page by page in a slideshow, however, added no functionality. If anything, it lessened the effectiveness of the document by constraining the viewable size of the document and forcing the reader to move in a linear fashion. If the document had also been redesigned specifically to be presented as slides, it would have been much more effective.
In an upcoming post, I will present some solutions to the slideument conundrum. I will share examples of how to fill the needs of conference organizers and teachers by utilizing notes and/or creating two documents.
Update: After some more consideration, and comments from readers, I’ve written a follow up post clarifying the problems with this presentation and suggesting a new term for the Kashi dilemma – docuslides.
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.
Students
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.
Textbooks
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!
Teachers
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.
Presentations
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.
It’s not often that you get to see a presentation and think, “Wow.” I’m not talking about the “whoa dude! That was so awesome!” kind of reaction. What I’m talking about is when you know that the message you just heard was exactly what the presenter meant for you to hear, and that the whole experience was simple and clear.
I recently had this experience watching the keynote at Apple’s World Wide Developer’s Conference.
Go ahead, chuckle, snort, you can even post a snarky comment about me being an Apple fanboy. It’s alright. Because it’s true. I love Apple and everything they stand for. I’m not saying that they are a perfect organization or that this presentation didn’t have any flaws (in fact, there were two obvious errors in this keynote). It’s just that their simple, direct approach to business, product design, marketing – and presenting – make it so that little, if anything, is misunderstood.
Go ahead and watch just a little bit of it.
Notice how there is rarely any text on the screen.
Beautiful, high quality images are used in place of bullet points.
Simple, easy to read graphs.
Transitions are used appropriately to create emphasis.
Not to mention a clutter free stage, large projector screen, the use of light humor, repetition, seamless transitions between speakers, and more.
Seriously, just watch a bit if you have some time.
The article, and the research done by State University of New York, focus on whether using podcasts as an extra study resource for students can improve grades. I am a huge fan of podcasts. Over the past couple of years I have learned an immense amount by listening to podcasts – from language, to photography, to brain science, and design. On iTunes U anyone can access lectures from some of the best universities in the country by downloading and listening to podcasts of each lecture. This is a great way to acquire knowledge or to get further study for a class you’re currently taking.
What I found even more interesting about this study was the method of teaching and study that wasn’t as effective: handing out printed copies of the lecture slides to students. As the author of the article notes, passing out PowerPoint handouts has become “all the rage” in many lecture halls, within or outside the academic world. In fact, two of my previous science courses are designed around PowerPoint handouts – every slide of every lecture for the entire semester is included in a “Lecture Guide” that the students purchase at the beginning of the semester (sometimes in lieu of a textbook).
What’s the problem with this?
PowerPoint slides are NOT notes. They should not function as notes. Not for the teacher and especially not for the student. Retention increases when exposure to information occurs across multiple modalities – listening to a lecture, reading a textbook, discussing a subject in a study group, etc. (You may be familiar with the idea of being a visual vs. kinisthetic vs. auditory learner.)
A printout of common lecture slides is not much different than the lecture – except that you probably aren’t having them read to you by a Ph.D.
But repitition increases recall, right?
Yes, that is true, but do not forget that certain modalities of learning are less effective than others. As Dr. John Medina points out, “the brain sees words as tiny pictures. Reading creates a bottleneck.” (Brain Rules, pg. 234)
This is just one more reason to do away with text on those lecture slides, replace them with images, and maybe even replace the handouts with a link to the podcast version of your next lecture.
