Tuesday, August 22

PowerPoint?

Scot McKnight is ranting about PowerPoint and is trying to justify why he doesn't use it in his classroom. He's got a good list of reasons.

I'm a bit more open to PowerPoint presentations than Scot -- as long as we're not talking about a daily dose of them. The real problem with PowerPoint presentations is that they are presentations. It's not the technology per se but the underlying assumption that you can teach by simply presenting a series of slides. Yes, slides can be helpful at times. But they tend to transform students into audiences. And they can lock teachers onto a path in which there is little room for deviation. That is, it's hard to change directions when using PowerPoint and student discussion isn't as sequential as the slides. The temptation will be to minimize the moment so you can get through your presentation.

2 comments:

Dan said...

I just heard that our youth pastor's aunt is moving to Guam this fall to teach at a Christian college there. I'm thinking there's only one out there. I'm trying to find out her name, but Robert's been out a lot recently. You know youth pastors and summers. So do you have a new female faculty member from California this year?

Brad Boydston said...

None this year. We have an English teacher that hopes to be on Island in January. There are a few small unaccredited Bible colleges on Guam.