Resources

This is one of the nerdiest statements I will ever write: I was recently on a bus traveling from Istanbul to Iznik (ancient Nicaea) with a group of Wesleyan scholars on a tour of ancient Christian sites in Asia Minor for the 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea. Yes, we visited the ruins of the basilica where the Council of Nicaea was held on the anniversary—to the day—of the start of the council. If you understood even partly why this was exciting, congratulations! You’re a nerd too.Aside from seeing a bunch of old rocks (how my parents described the pictures I sent them), we gave talks during the long bus rides about various aspects of history and theology related to the ecumenical councils. As a participant, I got to observe a kind of wild teaching different from my own. I came home with ideas.People frequently ask about my use of technology if I’m going outside: “How do you show them videos or PowerPoints?!” I don’t. (Honestly, I don’t use them in my indoor classrooms either.) On the tour bus, though, I saw some teachers thinking about analog versions of the technology they would use in the classroom. The tour guide himself wanted to describe some geography of Turkey to us on the first day, and people struggled. In a classroom, he might have pulled up a map on the projector. Or if we’d been in my elementary classroom, he’d have pulled down the correct map from the roll screwed to the wall. Instead, he handed a large map to one of my colleagues and asked him to hold it up at the front of the bus—even walk down the aisle if people needed to see better. Later on the trip, one colleague tried to explain her conception of a Trinitarian doctrine and drew a large diagram on a piece of butcher paper for us, again walking closer to people as they needed.I was also fortunate to tour the necropolis under the Vatican and a set of catacombs in Rome, and there again I watched my guides give excellent presentations with analog visual aids. These two tour guides had a packet of images printed off, each laminated for longevity and bound with metal rings. They flipped through the packet at the proper times in their spiel to help us see what they described—an analog PowerPoint!All of this has me thinking more about one colleague’s thoughtful question: “I need to use the projector for showing some things, or I have maps I like to use. Help me think about making analog versions of digital aids so I can teach outside more.” I’ll bet we can be more creative. All of our digital realities had analog versions to begin with, right? My students don’t know that a “file” was a thing before computers—but it was. What is the digital thing replacing, and can we go back to the original?If we can go back to the original, there is still the question of whether we want to, which is partly a question of ease. Presumably, we’re using the digital version of a thing instead of the analog because it is easier or more efficient. Why would we go back? Well, I’ve been reading some Wendell Berry lately, so I’m wondering if there are situations when doing things the less efficient way is better for reasons other than productivity. Which leads me back to the question of why I take students outside in the first place. Are those reasons worth working through the challenges of this choice? Yes, for me they are. Need to show students a passage in Greek? Have them bring their NT and work through it together. Or make a handout. Yes, it will take a little more time, but perhaps that little more time is enough for some of them to figure it out because they’re holding something in their hands and tactilely working with the thing. Buy a big map if you use a lot of them. Or draw one. My students love when I draw because I am so bad at it.Are there technologies that might be hard to replicate? Yes. A reader recently got in touch to ask about hearing-impaired students—do I use a microphone? No, I don’t. We don’t even have that capability in our classrooms. But on this tour of Turkey, we used whispers—devices with headphones that each of us wore while our guide had the device with a microphone that transmitted to all of us. This is a great technological invention for hearing in spaces full of people or cars. Perhaps we could invest in a set for classroom use outdoors? For non-hearing-impaired students, is it more important to rely on each other to understand what’s happening—even if it’s less efficient—or do I value more the clarity they would gain from hearing me better the first time through?I realize I’ve asked more questions than given answers, but the question of how to teach outside the classroom—or even inside the classroom—is always going to ask us to consider our values. How we teach is an extension of why we teach. And the more aligned our how is with our why, the more our students will receive the formation we hope for them. 

Two years ago I decided to kill voice-over PowerPoint as an online teaching tool. It wasn’t nearly as hard to kill as I thought it would be. And, for good reasons, I won’t go back. If you are new to online teaching, someone will inevitably suggest voice-over PowerPoint as a core component of online course design. They may even insist it is an “easy” entry into online teaching. When I started teaching online graduate seminary courses in theology, I relied heavily on voice-over PowerPoint. I used it for several consecutive years. But not anymore. Voice-over PowerPoint is taxing, redundant, and rigid for both instructors and students. More important, it doesn’t support productive or engaged learning online. Voice-over PowerPoint allows an instructor to design a visual presentation and then record narration or lecture content in sync with the slides. Thankfully, individual slides can be re-recorded without starting over from the beginning. In the narration recording, the instructor controls when the slides advance for the viewer. In online courses, typically the file is converted into streaming video that can be posted for students to view. Slightly more sophisticated tools (Prezi, Screencast-O-Matic, Camtasia, etc.) provide non-linear options or include video. At first glance, these tools simulate residential classroom practices. In residential courses, PowerPoint can enhance learning by adding visual content, important textual information, and helpful organization and pacing. Constructing PowerPoint presentations without voice-over narration is relatively straightforward, and most residential classrooms have appropriate technology support. In residential classrooms, I use PowerPoint to support interactive lecturing, which includes collaborative in-the-moment conversation, clarification, and imagination. Recreating residential patterns for using PowerPoint therefore seems to make sense in the habitat of online teaching and learning, but there are uncomfortable surprises. Voice-over PowerPoint is time intensive, not easily updated, and it tends to lock-in problematic course design. Voice-over PowerPoint is more time consuming when it is an online course component. Even if you are not a stickler for articulate and well-paced narration, it takes substantial time to get it right. Rendering voice-over PowerPoint files to streaming files takes considerable computer processing time. The first time I rendered a video, my computer was locked and unresponsive for six hours. With adequate technology support services, the process can move faster. Yet this means working on lectures well ahead of time, and many instructors lack adequate technical support. In addition, once a PowerPoint is rendered into streaming video, any changes, even very small changes, are incredibly cumbersome and frustrating to implement. One colleague of mine finds rendering videos so exasperating that she works from the tight space of her bedroom closet where she can curse and pound the walls every time her laptop computer crashes. On one occasion it crashed seven consecutive times. In course evaluations and check-ins, my online students have reported that voice-over PowerPoint feels laborious and redundant while residential students often found it helpful. The difference has to do with how online students multitask and manage fulltime work environments while pursuing education. Online learners prefer content they can listen to or watch without long stationary stretches at a computer in a solely receptive rather than interactive mode. When PowerPoint is content heavy and stretches beyond 15 minutes, students report being confused and frustrated. For example, they struggled to take notes while watching and listening because both tasks required the same screen. I responded by providing copies of slides and note-taking guides, but the situation and frustrations did not improve. Relying heavily on voice-over PowerPoint lecturing is not good online pedagogy. In residential contexts it can be interactive and invitational, but online it is one-directional and redundant. Instructors spend a lot of time putting together content not easily updated or augmented. Students spend a lot of time tediously copying down content, memorizing content, and repeating it on an exam. This kind of copying and rehearsing is labor intensive. And in the end, it does not mean students can demonstrate how new information or paradigms are useful, fruitful, or relevant. The learning patterns of redundancy don’t truly engage a learner or enhance a learner’s agency.   Thus, no matter how much time you have already invested, it is wise to avoid relying heavily on voice-over PowerPoint and equivalent tools. Instead, consider these alternative best practices for promoting productive and engaged learning online. Try moving PowerPoint content to course pages. Course page content can include images, links, and embedded PDF readings. Components and texts can be easily updated and corrected by the instructor. Page content can be saved and transferred if your course platform changes. Make sure the information you want to convey to students is not already available from trusted online sources or trusted scholars. Curate, rather than recreate, the best resources to avoid redundant faculty work. In the discipline of theology, this introduces students to a wider range of voices, generously celebrates other scholars’ expertise, and models how and where to find good theological information online. Incorporate interactive learning activities that invite students into the learning process in ways voice-over lectures cannot. For example, one of my objectives in an online Christology course is to raise critical awareness around how images of Jesus can support nationalism, injustice, violence, and racism. I used to provide images in PowerPoint presentation. Now I ask students to go in search of images and post them to a digital bulletin board (such as ./>Padlet). Subsequently students move through page content, external links, and course reading. Afterwards, students return to their posted images and comment on what they have learned, see differently, or want to ask. Due to this small design change, learning became engaged and interactive while requiring far less time-intensive setup. I also widened my own pool of online images. Use short (approximately 10 minutes) recorded video segments to orient students to the content, learning, and objectives you have in mind for a whole course or course module. Basic computer apps and programs support short videos student can watch, listen, or download. Resist the editing impulse and keep it real. This allows students to hear and feel an instructor’s presence as an important point of orientation. Use PowerPoint or related tools sparingly for short forays into content that will not likely need updating. When slide presentation is crucial for course design, consider alternative tools such as ./>VoiceThread which allow students to comment, respond, or ask questions of the instructor in ways embedded in the slide presentation. (There is a yearly fee for VoiceThread, but it may be worth the expense.) Two years ago I killed voice-over PowerPoint in online teaching, and I won’t go back. The kill meant eliminating a central source of my own and student frustration. Not one student has complained about its absence, and the new course design gets strong reviews. Better strategies and shifting imagination have resulted in more sustainable online teaching and learning practices. Best of all, instead of repeating my recorded words and imitating my own voice, students are learning to exercise their own. And I get to see and evaluate more accurately what they are truly learning.