[lpi-discuss] looking for courseware

[Jeremy Anderson]

--- Original Message ---
 From: ross e. brunson
Sent: 5/12/2005 9:14 PM

>
>I finally got used to OO and how it worked, I was a very accomplished MS
>Orifice user, particularly in Powerpoint, so Impress took a while to get
>used to...
>  
>
I found that creating all my worksheets and lecture notes (and the 
various instructions I handed out) in HTML, using vi, was a great time 
saver.  Furthermore, it kept my entire class small enough to fit on a 
floppy, and made it trivial to post everything on a web page.

I dislike most fancy presentation software because it detracts from the 
material being presented.

The PowerPoint mentality of "every word must be on a slide" rapidly 
overwhelms students.  Worse, the practice of handing printouts of one's 
slides wastes paper and gets the student out of taking notes.  When 
students complained "I can't take notes and listen to your lecture at 
the same time", I typically recommended a tape recorder.

ISTR that the Air Force Academy has banned powerpoint entirely, and 
rightfully so.  Much like trying to teach writing with MS Word, people 
quickly get wrapped up in silly things like different bullet styles, 
fonts, font colors, background pictures, bouncing letters and other 
irrelevancies.

Jeremy