I selected Edward Tufte's essay on The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint for the group's first reading. I did this on purpose because this essay can either (a) resonate with people's feelings and experiences about conventional presentations and the limitations of PowerPoint (e.g., low resolution), or (b) rile folks up because they disagree with Tufte's hard-line or his message style. Regardless, it can be a somewhat emotional reading for folks, and I wanted everyone to get emotional about our work as instructional message designers. I wanted folks to be thinking about how they could prove Tufte wrong, how they could show alternatives to PowerPoint for the presentation of instructional messages, how they could defend/rationalize (using the literature on theory and research) the use of tools like PowerPoint for presentation, and so on.
I think the essay worked as a first reading. Now we will move into readings (i.e., Medina and Mayer) and videos (i.e., the Discovering Psychology videos) that are grounded in research. This will empower the group, and give them the information they need to reevaluate Tufte's message and decide whether or not he is correct...and, if so, what to do about it as instructional message designers.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment