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When Technology Attacks Teaching

By overconvergent
Posted Mon Jun 27, 2005 at 07:21:57 AM PDT
When I last gave a talk the overhead projector was suffering (as was I) from unseasonable hot weather, and it kept breaking down. This made me think about technolog and the problems it causes while teaching.

Here is an article talking about how technology in the classroom can be actively unhelpful.

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The really simple common-sense principle that I follow is that one should always have a copy of one's slides; I've seen someone at their own university completely unable to display their powerpoint, and at another talk a new laptop had to be provided as the projector didn't like the first one and refused to work with it.

Any more interesting horror stories?

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When Technology Attacks | 1 comment (1 topical, 0 hidden)
[new] even with only the daily minor mishap... (none / 0) (#1)
by sormani on Sun Oct 23, 2005 at 09:00:23 PM PDT

Almost every highly technical talk I've seen has had some error in some equation somewhere.  When the talk is on the blackboard or transparencies, the correction can be made on the spot.  On powerpoint or other laptop presentations, the speakers always just say there is an error.

That aside, I don't think laptop presentations have any advantage over transparencies unless there is some animation.  Calling up data and graphics tends to be slower than pulling out a transparency and powerpoint could've been printed out anyway.

Furthermore, transparency presentations are rarely as clear as blackboard presentations in analysis and differential geometry.  The speaker can only really interact with the audience using the blackboard.  If the speaker is forced to write out the equations then the audience has time to absorb them.  Only when there is some nice graphics or data to present is there an advantage to using the overhead.  



When Technology Attacks | 1 comment (1 topical, 0 hidden)
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