An UnemPowered Presentation

In "The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint," Edward Tufte seriously hates on the famous software program. You could say he's analyzing the various pros and cons of using PowerPoint, but let's face it, he's hating on it. And not just from the viewpoint of a disgruntled administrator - he brings in a case study of the Columbia spacecraft crash... and attributes a major reason for its crash to PowerPoint.

Ouch.

Tufte's first argument that stuck out to me was how the format of PowerPoint breeds the usage of hierarchical categories that are simply not needed. "Bullet Points Dilute Thought," he states, which intrigues me. I would think that by summarizing an idea into bullet points and categories, subject matter would be distilled down to its essence, not diluted into meaningless "phluff."

Take note of the screen shot below, which is taken from Tufte's article. He is describing the hierarchical usage in the PowerPoint presentation that was used to describe warning signs that all was not well before the Columbia crash.

Put in this very clear format, the hierarchy used actually seems preposterous! You know, dashes and diamonds and little bullets... It makes sense that the human brain would get a bite of information and then "dilute" it with lots of personal assumptions. He states that this is one of the main reasons that dissemination of information of the damage to the Columbia spacecraft was so scatterbrained and ineffective. Thus, nobody did anything about the damage and bam, the craft crashed.

Another pointer that Tufte makes is that PowerPoint has a low resolution. My first thought was, "Are you serious? PowerPoint presentations can be extremely fancy and high-res!" Then I checked the date that this article was written - 2003. Aha, that explains it. Technology advances at exponential speeds, and the popular PowerPoint is no exception.

What caught my eye the most, though, about this issue that Tufte brings up (and not just discarding it as outdated) is that each slide in PowerPoint condenses information down to such concentrated extents that much is lost in the process. This harkens back to the previous point about how bullets "dilute thought." He notes that presenters put only very little on each slide because of the resolution, thus "with so little information per slide, many many slides are needed. Audiences consequently endure a relentless sequentiality, one damn slide after another."

True, true. I have definitely sat through many a mind-numbing presentations that flashed before my eyes.

The thing is, Tufte hates on PowerPoint, but what does he suggest to replace it? Personally, I believe that PowerPoint is a tool - and like any tool, it can be used improperly and even cause a lot of damage (as in the case of the Columbia crash). But when used properly, PowerPoint can transform teaching and also learning into a dynamic presentation that engages and inspires.

Does This Game Make the Cut?

If you're going to incorporate computer games into your classroom setting, you've got to have a standard.

Not all computer games are created equal.

An Active Process

Okay, nerds and geeks unite! After such a nerds-and-geek-downer proposition last week that there is No Significant Difference in learning with or without the application of technology, a retaliation was in store.

This week the title of the article in question is, "The MYTH About No Significant Difference." The article that Oblinger and Hawkins write ultimately boils down to one question: "Difference in what?"

The authors emphasize that if we are to look at "learning" as the significant difference, we can break learning down into many facets: motivation, opportunities, active process, interaction with others, etc. Indeed, incorporating technology does not automatically guarantee an increase in learning, but the potential is there.

The final statement of the article says: Does using technology produce a significant difference? The answer depends on how the question is asked." Oblinger and Hawkins sound remarkably unbiased and balanced, but of course their article is all about the myriad ways that technology can transform the learning process. They give very few examples of technology not making a difference.

I resonate the most with learning as an active process. Learning is an experience - sometimes that experience comes through reading a book, sometimes through traveling to another country. I feel that if technology can enhance the active process of an experience, then by all means it is worth every penny of investment.

An example of meaningful learning is going through the steps to actually publish a book, while not-so-meaningful learning is to research how books are published and then give a presentation.

So if meaningful learning incorporates technology into an active process, then it means being able to create a product and be able to share that with other students and with the world. Technology is an incredible platform to expose one's work to the world for evaluation and growth.

Like this blog.

I know that this blog is simply a learning journal for a class, but I plan on putting a link to this blog on my Facebook and even on my other, more mainstream blog, Seed of Devotion. I figure I might as well apply the power of technology in its best way - the active process of sharing with others. 

Paper vs. Pixel - NSD??

Consider the difference in me writing this post out on a sheet of paper versus me writing this post out on this blog. The former I hand it in to the professor, the latter I click "PUBLISH POST." Either way, a man by the name of Richard Clark had a question: "Does the form of media in which something is learned make any difference on learning?"

At last he concluded, after much research, there was No Significant Difference. Yes, those are capital letters. This research is quite old and has reach such fame (infamy?) that it has even been shortened to an acronym: NSD.

But all I wonder is: Difference on what?

Clark posits that it doesn't matter how a subject is delivered, but what is ultimately delivered - much like a delivery truck delivering goods to the market. Learning is learning, he seems to say, and the media in which is delivered has absolutely no impact on that learning.

I was curious to see if Clark would change his position, which he did. But it wasn't that he de-validated all of his work and stated the opposite, but rather that he took his same work and moved to a different spot to view it from. He mainly questions the "unique influence of media" on learning.

So then one might ask: what is learning? Clark seems to have a very defined idea that learning is a cognitive product - something to be achieved at the end of a cognitive process. But if learning is truly a cognitive product, then we could just confine learning to taking tests... which doesn't quite work because one needs to learn something to be able to take the test!

So how does this research impact the classroom? After all, Clark suggest that utilizing various media only signify a difference in cost and convenience. School administrators might cite the "No Significant Difference" (or shall I say quite smartly, the NSD) study to justify a cut in technology funding in schools - fail to update what is currently in use and also to resist investing in technology for the future.

In conclusion, would I have learned more by writing this post out on a sheet of paper and handing it in to my professor? Or have I learned more by typing it out on blogger.com and clicking "PUBLISH POST"?

I honestly have no idea.

While human beings have been learning just fine without computers for millennia, I must admit that a blog post is much more fun than handing in a piece of paper. 

The Staircase and The Summit

I once heard a story about a man who wanted to know what gold was. He was told that if he climbed this particular gigantic staircase, he would reach the top and know what gold was. Along the way he kept asking what gold was, but the people just smiled, shook their head, and said, "Keep going."

The man reached the summit of the staircase. Hands shaking with excitement, he opened the door... and there was a block of gold. In astonishment, he whirled around to look down at the staircase he had just climbed. It was made entirely of gold.

This story sums up the idea of learning as a process and a product. The two principles are deeply interconnected. For the man to even understand what gold was, he had to climb a staircase made of gold, and he could only have the realization of its value when he reached the top.

Writing this blog post is a process - I reflect upon a school assignment and I formulate my thoughts into words and stories and ideas. And yet as a produce, I must hit "Publish Post" for you, my professor, to even grade this work and count it towards my grade in Integrating Technology into the Classroom.

I identify with viewing learning as a process - I feel that is 90% of my experience in this world. The other 10% is the outcome of that learning, and how do I continue to evolve in my learning as feedback. Instead of "knowing that" I want to "know how"... and yet I must begin with "knowing that" to "know how."

I mean, the man could have simply Googled a definition and image and maybe even shopped for it online. But his process was to journey far, to have an experience. Learning is an experience.

I want to climb the staircase.