Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Avoiding Death by PowerPoint! (Karl Kapp)



In this audio narrated Breeze presentation (Adobe now!) above, Karl Kapp gives you some really useful ideas on how you can transform your PowerPoint slides, and use them to facilitate engaging conversations and discussions with your students.

Do you struggle to create engaging PowerPoint slides and presentations? Are your students bored with your lectures and tutorials? Is it PowerPoint's fault (Is PowerPoint Evil?)?

PowerPoint is just one learning tool (with its strengths and weaknesses) among many. The key to facilitating effective learning experiences is mostly in the design. If you are crap at facilitating learning, no matter what tool you use, you are still going to be crap. Though, the tool might enable you to mash-up more attractive visuals, but it won't take long before your students get bored and just doze off.

But if you combine attractive visuals (Apple style!) with excellent game play or instructional design (sparking learning discoveries and conversations!), more students will be motivated and willing to learn, which is a prerequisite for any real learning to take place.

Here are a couple of more interesting Breeze presentations from Karl the Man (Not a woman!):

You can find some more learning juice from Karl Kapp's homepage. Finally, you just have to check out his blog 'Kapp Notes', especially if you want to learn more about Virtual Worlds and 'Learning in 3D'. He is a great starting point and an expert with tons of experience :)

2 comments:

  1. Hi Zaid and Karl...Ever looked into Prezi? Give it a look... http://prezi.com/ I call it PPNG (Power Point Next Generation). Happy Holidays!

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  2. HI Ajaan Rob,

    Prezi is cool, and the flow and style (flowing mind map) is awesome. But, I have yet to really like the editing features of the tool :(

    When that improves, I am ready to jump the Prezi :)

    Cheers and Happy 2010!

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