PowerPoint – A Learning Tool?
As I sat in a rather long “hold your questions because we have a lot to cover” business meeting counting to myself slide 46…, slide 47…, oh darn, look at this, slide 48 has a graph and 11 lengthy bullet points, I started to reminisce on my high school days. Okay, I’ll admit to not being the best of all students in high school. It seems then, as now, my mind was prone to wondering a bit. I’m certain that I would have been diagnosed as suffering from Attention Deficit Disorder had I been in school today. But perhaps it’s for the best, because without much help from the early educators, I had to figure out a method of focusing my thoughts so that I might better learn! What I discovered was that within classes I had a natural interest in, I eagerly asked questions. And my questions lead to small discussions and an even higher level of interest on my part, which lead to more questions and in time, voila, better grades! It doesn’t sound revolutionary, but for me it represented a sort of epiphany which I could transfer to less interesting classes. Just ask a simple question. Obviously I became one of the more obnoxious students to attend class with, but I figured it was all for the greater good.
