...and thus there are some really bad distance learning courses out there
that make little use of the capabilities tech has to offer. Many
instructors try to replicate an on-site course format, or (perhaps worse
yet) just simply publish a textbook in little chunks.
Sheryl

 On Wed, 12 Jun 2002, Prof Norm Coombs wrote:

> Dear Vikki:
>
> My real frustration is with distance ed faculty these days.  You know you
> teach one way in a room that holds 10 people, another in a room that holds
> 50 and yet differently in one that holds 900.
>
> Instead of trying to understand the medium, teachers rush in trying to find
> ways to replicate what they do in an entirely different context rather than
> trying to understand the medium and exploit it.
> At 06:21 PM 6/11/02 -0500, you wrote:
> >Well...uh...as one of those lazy and thoughtless people, I have to admit
> >you really do have a point there!  It really is a lazier way of putting
> >the content out there that developing a good free-form web page on your
> >topic, perhaps using your outline as a starting point.
> >
> >I think the valid usage of putting your slide show up, whether Corel or
> >PowerPoint, may be to let others see what you presented/how you presented
> >it who could not attend your presentation, and actually to make sure you
> >have an alternative way to even show your slides, because at least you can
> >get them with any graphical browser that way.  We usually have to do our
> >lectures with slides and getting a little extra mileage out of them
> >without much extra time seems good to us in academia who can barely eke
> >out the time to get the presentations done in the first place.
> >
> >If it raises your opinion of me at all, I do believe in going in there and
> >adding comments and links and even little "side trips" to my slide files.
> >I hope I make it a little more like the presentation instead of just the
> >backdrop that way, and I find you do the slides a litlte differently if
> >you are thinking of it that way when you create the presentation. In
> >particular I always duplicate any links I had put into the slide since the
> >versions I am using do not automatically make them into hot links.  I
> >think you have to count on at least one edit per slide file, and actually
> >this is not that hard to do...I guess it is quick and easy enough it is
> >keeping me "lazy".  You just use the little Start-Run box to type notepad
> >slide1.htm, notepad slide2.htm, etc. (of course with whatever directory
> >you have dumped them in.)
> >
> >This has been a great discussion, and I am looking forward to more...also
> >again Powerpoint at least has a text button for each slide (can the
> >screenreader see those- the alt text on the button says "text"?) and then
> >you can surf the whole thing as text.  Except slides that are just
> >illustrations won't have anything unless you edit that file also.
> >
> >I will keep reading and thinking (and fixing my own stuff) and maybe we
> >can approach both of the software companies we have mentioned with ideas
> >on how to help users make these shows accessible.
> >
> >Norm, I can't believe you'd think we could ever ignore *you*!!
> >
> >Vikki Stefans, M.D., pediatric physiatrist (rehab doc for kids) at UAMS
> >and Arkansas Children's Hospital.  Working Mom of Sarah T. and Michael C.,
> >and wife of Henry Stefans, travel agent extraordinaire.  Every mom is a
> >working mom!- OK, dads too. Other address: [log in to unmask]
> >
> >On Sat, 8 Jun 2002, Prof Norm Coombs wrote:
> >
> > > PowerPoint canworkwith a screen reader especially if the slides focus on
> > > text materials.  It makes the material a bit more of a bother to
> > > navigate and read on the web than content ought to be, but it can be
> > > readily accessible.
> > >
> > > As a distance learning practitioner for 20 years, I deplore the widespread
> > > use of PowerPoint in distance learning.  It is one of the more thoughtless
> > > and lazy ways to provide materials and largely undermines the unique
> > > strengths of distance learning and totally misses the point of what
> > > PowerPoint is for as well.
> > >
> > > Teachers who just take material and throw it on the web and think that is
> > > distance learning are squeezing a square peg into a round hole.
> > >
> > > PowerPoint is intended to be the backdrop to a presentation and not the
> > > presentation.  It is like writing the outline for a book and publishing it
> > > and not bothering to write the book.
> > >
> > > However, I am sure I am a lone, cranky voice hollering down an empty rain
> > > barrel and will be immediately ignored.
>
>
>                  Norman Coombs, Ph.D.
> CEO, EASI (Equal Access to Software and Information)
> http://www.rit.edu/~easi
> Professor Emeritus, Rochester Institute of Technology
> E-mail: [log in to unmask]
>          Cell (949) 922-5992
> http://www.rit.edu/~nrcgsh
> 22196 Caminito Tasquillo
> Laguna Hills CA 92653
>