Blending Dialogue Education
and Powerpoint

by Dwayne Hodgson
Global Learning Partners ~ Programs Director

Those who have taken a course with Global Learning Partners often comment on the fact that we don't use Power Point and LCD projectors for our workshops. Their comments are either complimentary ("Wow! I'm so tired of yet another Power Point presentation! It's great to see another way to hold a workshop") or puzzled ("How can I use Dialogue Education in a situation where my colleagues expect me to use Power Point?").

Although using Power Point slides would certainly save us a lot of time in preparing flip charts, there are seven reasons that we prefer to use flip charts:

1. Charts are usually easier for participants to do during group learning tasks. It is rare that you would have a laptop computer for every table.
   
   
2. Flip charts and markers seldom have the technical difficulties that computers and power point projectors do. Ever heard anyone say, "Hey, my marker isn't compatible with the paper!"? Of course, some people do have chemical sensitivities to some markers, so try including at least one pack of Staedtler Lumocolor Flipchart Markers.
   
   
3. We want to model writing the tasks out in the same way that we ask the participants to do for their practice teaching sessions. Not everyone would have access to a laptop to do Power Point slides.
   
   
4. We want to model an approach that can be used by all of the participants, even those who are working in more spartan settings. For example, many of our participants are teaching overseas in developing countries where there may not be a reliable power supply. After all, if there's no power, there's no point!
   
   
5. In order to see the screen, you often have to dim the lights. This means that either the presenter is a disembodied voice, and/or that all of the eyes in the room are fixed on the screen. This can only reinforce the power dynamics of monologue: promoting telling, not teaching and learning.
   
   
6. People tend to rely too much on technology, and don't focus their energy on the learners' needs and creating a safe environment for praxis.
   
   
7. The way that Power Point is typically used tends to mean that the presenters "dump" a lot of information on the slides and too often just read it to the audience. Although this does provide a visual component to complement an auditory presentation, it can insult the audience and it limits the discussion to just pushing information (i.e. in Bloom's Taxonomy this would be just Knowledge, not deeper learning).

Okay, call me a Luddite, but this what I've experienced so far. What has been your experience? Share your ideas for future postings by email.

Some Exceptions to the Rule
There are three exceptions where I would recommend using Power Point slides, however. These are:

1. Teaching contexts where the use of Power Point is actually a safety issue for the participants. People in some organizations like corporate training environments may not take you seriously unless you use Power Point. If not using these technologies inhibits their ability to engage with the material than that is a de facto safety issue for them. But if you use these technologies, be sure not to lecture for 45 minutes. Instead, use the screen as you would a flip chart to post key ideas of the task, but switch the focus to the learner's activity as much as possible (See the example below).
   
   
2. A situation where you have a lot of participants and some of them will have to be more than 30 feet from the flip charts. With the 1" / 10 ft rule above, you'd then have to write all the flip charts in 3" high letters and soon you won't be able to write much on the charts.
   
   
3. Power Point and LCD projectors are great technologies for slide shows of digital photographs, and much easier to use than the old slide projectors.

An Example of Using Dialogue Education with Power Point
Tricia Wind, a colleague in Ottawa, has done some interesting work in blending Dialogue Education and Power Point for a series of training modules that she was completing for the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) on the Sustainability of Knowledge Networks.

Initially she was asked to create a series of Power Point slides that would serve as foundation materials for other presenters to use in their workshops. However, Trish elected to create 1 set of slides with accompanying learning tasks that would break up the presentation into smaller segments and invite the learners to be active participants in their own learning through individual reflection, discussion in pairs and group work.

Please click here to see a sample of the Power Point slides, as well as some outtakes from some of the supporting documents that the participants would have in their binders.

I think this is a neat example of how you could realize some of the benefits of Power Point while not being limited to monstrously monotonous and monolithic modes of monologue.

Her colleagues at IDRC obviously agreed. In response to Trish she wrote:

"....The issues you flag and then, through various modalities, set up for workshop participants to unpack, debate, further explore or apply is fabulous. The entire package seems based on the assumption that participants themselves possess rich reservoirs of knowledge. The suggested modalities discreetly facilitate ways to draw on that knowledge and understand it through the perspective of resource mobilization. This was my ideal for this work and it is very gratifying to see it materialize.

"The modules are really well-organized and presented. The Table of
Contents that links the module to learning objective / outcome is extremely useful.

"I presented your work at the team meeting and it went over very, very well. This was evidenced by the trainers, with whom [IDRC] officers in Asia and South Asia work, approaching me for a copy of the CD, and the officers themselves asking about when the CD would be posted, and when the [Learning Needs and Resources Assessment (LNRA)] would be ready!"

As far as I know, the author of these comments has never taken a course nor read any of Jane's work, but she clearly caught the intention of Trish's work. She then asked Trish to revise all of the Power Point slides to incorporate more interactive learning opportunities.

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