Chris Bertram has a good post up about using Powerpoint in the classroom. I asked for feedback about powerpoint a few weeks ago. Since then, I’ve been using it in my two intro classes, policy class, and media class. My evaluation:
It has come in very handy in my media class. I can put up the picture of dead servicemen in caskets and talk about its impact. Much more effective than just talking about it. Now that we’re talking about blogs, I’ve been able to quickly move from Instapundit to Tapped. In my public policy class, I was able to show the latest poll information about the public’s growing interest in universal health care and even show the short video from the Times on their findings. That’s been super cool. I also have made text-only slides with definitions, which saves me some effort on the board.
I’m dead set against using powerpoint for the theory class next fall.
The pros and cons: The students like it. And I need their good recommendations, so that’s important. It forces me to give more organized lectures. It does kill some spontaneity. I go through material faster, which can be a bad thing (more prep work). It takes more time to make the stupid slides and find the images.
Apt. 11d 
Prof. PowerPoint
Laura of 11D has been trying out PowerPoint in her classes lately despite some initial reluctance to do so. I have to say I’m generally in the anti-slideshow† camp, with a few exceptions: I always do my job talks with a presentation if I can. It keeps …
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I have found it depends on the class.
In my Political Theory class, it would be worthless. In Comparative Government or World Politics, it has been really useful.
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Powerpoint is just a method to employ presentation material. If its interesting material and the user isn’t readign directly from slides, you’ll be good to go. I’ve been in presentaitons, most notably in taking some rpe reqs for grad school, where the prof used the powerpoint slides provided by the main text book that we used. That was a horrible experinece of someone who couldn;t be bothered to be ready and prepared for class.
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I think the going through material too fast is a real problem with powerpoint. Because you don’t take the physical time required (for example, writing something on the board), the material can go by really fast. And the students think they know it, because they’ve seen it, but they don’t, really, because they haven’t thought about it.
bj
PS: I’m really worried about what the need for good evaluations from students is doing to teaching. I’m pretty convinced that scores are not at all useful, that comments sometimes are, but that they should be filtered by an outside observer. It’s sad.
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If you haven’t seen this yet, you need to:
http://www.norvig.com/Gettysburg/index.htm
It’s about PowerPoint, extremely funny and well worth your time.
If you have a Mac or can be persuaded to get one, try Keynote. It won’t make much difference to the substance of your presentation, but it will make it a lot more stylish with virtually no effort on your part.
As others have said, the quality of your presentation depends on the quality of your material, not on the special effects you use.
A former employer of mine, a Chemistry professor at CMU, had an excellent teaching system that I was quite impressed by. He used a Tablet PC and gave out blank copies of lecture notes. Then he filled them in with the solutions to problems during class.
I thought that was an excellent solution to the tension mentioned between having visual aids and whipping through them so fast students were unable to absorb them.
Oh, even though I’m a right-winger from Instapundit, I love your tagline, Mrs Incredible :-).
D
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