In the Classroom edited by
Computer Bulletin Board
Steven D. Gammon Western Washington University Bellingham, WA 98225
Digital Ink: In-Class Annotation of PowerPoint Lectures Anne E. Johnson Department of Chemistry and Biology, Ryerson University, Toronto, ON, Canada M5B 2K3;
[email protected] There are many views on whether the use of PowerPoint for delivering lectures is beneficial (1–4) or not (5–7). In the post-secondary classroom we often find ourselves obliged to use PowerPoint, or similar digital presentation software, because of large class sizes, university and student expectations, or because of the facilities available in the lecture hall. Some of the advantages and disadvantages of using PowerPoint in a traditional manner are listed in Table 1. Many articles and guides are available with suggestions for developing effective PowerPoint presentations for teaching: for example, see refs 8–11 and listings at The Center for Teaching and Learning at Connecticut College (12) and The Center for Teaching and Learning Services at the University of Minnesota (13). Rather than provide guidelines for design of effective PowerPoint presentations or to pass judgment on the effectiveness of PowerPoint for delivery of lectures, the use of digital ink technology for delivering lectures with PowerPoint is highlighted here.
Writing and drawing fluidly with the pen features requires a better input device than the mouse. A much easier way to write digitally is to use a pen-shaped stylus and either a Tablet PC or a graphics tablet that plugs into a USB port of your existing computer. The use of a Tablet PC for teaching has been documented elsewhere (14–16), as is a comparison of Tablet PCs and graphics tablets for teaching (17). While using a Tablet PC affords more options (14–17), the graphics tablet has a number of advantages. It can be much smaller and weigh less, it is more difficult to cause scratches on the active area serious enough to damage the input function, and the cost of smaller units is attractive. Unlike a mouse, the active area on a graphics tablet maps directly to an area on the screen. In other words, if you move your tablet pen to the bottom left corner of the active area, the cursor will show up on the bottom left corner of the computer screen. Similarly, the top right corner of the tablet’s active area maps to the upper right corner of the computer screen. A little time is required to retrain yourself to use the tablet as you would pen and paper rather than a mouse. A benefit of using a tablet rather than a mouse for regular mouse activities is that wrist injury is lowered (18). On the smaller graphics tablets without an LCD display you are not able to see your markings directly on the tablet’s active area. Rather, you must look at the computer monitor or at the projection screen to see what you are writing. This is not as difficult as it sounds; artists are trained to draw while keeping their eyes on their subject, looking at their papers infrequently. Think about what you intend to draw or write during your class. Try writing a sentence and drawing a structure without looking down at your paper. You will most likely determine that writing is much easier and more legible than drawing structures. Your students likely already know this from their experience taking notes in class. An additional complication to writing on a tablet is that the tactile sensation is not the same as using paper; the tablet surface is smoother and offers less resistance.
Digital Ink One solution to some of the problems with PowerPoint presentations is to use the “ink” annotation feature of PowerPoint. Digital ink allows freehand annotation of slides during a presentation. This feature is accessible in the newer (XP or 2003) versions of Microsoft Office PowerPoint in presentation mode, regardless of whether you use a standard PC or a Tablet PC. Office 2004 for Apple computers also has inking capabilities.1 With these tools, you can highlight sections of your slide, as you would on paper, to draw attention to or emphasize key points. Likewise, you can use the pens to circle, star, or draw arrows to point out important details. In Office 2003, but not earlier versions, you have the option of saving your annotated presentations for future reference. These saved annotations can later be edited, although not as easily as typed text.
Table 1. Benefits and Drawbacks to the Use of PowerPoint for Lecturing
Advantages
Disadvantages
• Presentation is pre-planned and organized
• Lectures tend to be teacher-centered and static
• Text is legible if large enough
• Changing slide order or content during a presentation is difficult
• Editing and revision is easy
• Lecture pace tends to be too fast
• Students tend to sit passively
• Complicated figures and diagrams do not need to be drawn out on a chalk board
• Sharing versions of the files is easy
• Students miss out on information given by lecturer’s gestures if they are not watching
• Answering student questions adequately can be difficult
• Going “off on a tangent” is tricky
• Students do not have much input in working through problems
© Division of Chemical Education • www.JCE.DivCHED.org • Vol. 85 No. 5 May 2008 • Journal of Chemical Education
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In the Classroom
Slide Design for Digital Ink
Summary
Using digital ink requires a few modifications to your slide design. Based on your conclusions from the drawing exercises above, you will probably want to include as many of your figures as possible, especially complex figures. Although most of your annotations are likely to be writing, underlining, circling, and highlighting, you will want to include some headings to give your students advance warning of what to think about or look up. Leave plenty of extra space for writing during class and including extra diagrams and explanations. I found that the best slide designs and backgrounds were very simple. I prefer solid white so that all the ink colors show up as they would on white paper, but solid dark designs also work well (with light colored ink). A few additional tips are (i) to save your file with a new name so that when you end your presentation you can save your annotations without affecting your original file and (ii) when you start up your presentation, change the default ink color (red) to automatic.
Using digital ink in combination with presentation technology is an excellent solution for real-time classroom activities that require input during class, especially when other teaching technologies (chalkboard, whiteboard, overhead projector, or document camera) are unavailable or switching to them is sufficiently inconvenient. Therefore, the digital inking technique described above can be used in any PowerPoint lecture to involve the students in the development of their knowledge. My experiences with using digital ink for teaching organic chemistry are similar to the accounts of instructors of math (16), electrical and computer engineering (15), and communication (17).
How Large an Active Area Do I Need? The graphics tablet that I use2 has an active area of 9.1 × 12.6 cm (3.65 × 5.02 inch). The active area is approximately the same size as the area of the printed frame if the slide is printed in “notes” or “handout” (with two slides per page). If you can write at about the same size as 24 point text prints in either of these options, then this size graphics tablet is sufficient for your needs. If you have very large writing or need to include large amounts of detail, then you may want to consider a tablet with a larger active area. A smaller active area is likely to be difficult to use for annotating PowerPoint slides during class. Inking in the Classroom Besides circling and briefly annotating items on your slides, you are free to draw and write. When you write on the slides, your students can keep up with your pace; your writing shows up on the screen in real time. You can ask your class to provide input as to what you should write down for the notes. You can show your students the mechanics of drawing chemical structures, such as the chair forms of cyclohexane, so that students can learn not only how to interpret structures, but how to draw the structures to share their own thinking with others. When working through problems, you do not need to have carefully pre-planned animated slides that unveil the solution to a problem as you talk. Instead, leave plenty of space, even an extra blank slide or two, and use this blank space as you would the blackboard or an overhead acetate. This is particularly effective if you act as the scribe and let your students suggest the problem solving approach and what should be written down to arrive at the solution. My organic chemistry students especially liked working through mechanism problems. If a point of discussion arises that requires a diagram for the class to follow, a new blank slide can be added mid-presentation and annotated, similar to the use of a new section of a chalkboard.
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Acknowledgments Leela Ramparas and Kenneth Sookhai of Ryerson University Media Services and Raheel Akhtar of Ryerson University Computing and Communication Services were instrumental in setting up the podium computers for use with the graphics tablet. Notes 1. To access digital ink, you need to have your presentation open and in presentation mode. Move your mouse to the lower left corner of the screen or right-click with the mouse. In PowerPoint 2003 and higher, there will be four icons. Click on the pen-shaped icon; a menu for pen and pointer options will appear. You will have a choice of pen style (ballpoint, felt tip, or highlighter), eraser, ink color (48 available), or arrow options. In PowerPoint XP and PowerPoint 2002, use the leftmost icon or right click. You will have a choice of pen or arrow and nine ink colors including black and white. The ink features in comparable versions of PowerPoint for Apple computers are similar to those indicated above. 2. A WACOM Graphire3 4×5 graphics tablet was used by the author. This model has been superseded by the Graphire4 series. WACOM produces a variety of graphics tablets. See http://www. wacom.com (accessed Jan 2008) for more information. Graphics tablets from other manufacturers may be readily available in your market.
Literature Cited 1. Ptaszynski, J. G. The Technology Source 1997, May. http://technologysource.org/article/powerpoint_as_a_technology_enhancement_to_traditional_classroom_activities/ (accessed Jan 2008). 2. Susskind, J. E. Computers and Education 2005, 45, 203–215. 3. Szabo, A.; Hastings, N. Computers and Education 2000, 35, 175–187. 4. Apperson, J. M.; Laws, E. L.; Scepansky, J. A. Computers and Education 2006, 47, 116–126. 5. Felder, R. M.; Brent, R. Chemical Engineering Education 2005, 39, 28–29. 6. Hlynka, D.; Mason, R. Educational Technolog y 1998, 38, 45–48. 7. Mason, R.; Hlynka, D. Educational Technolog y 1998, 38, 42–45.
Journal of Chemical Education • Vol. 85 No. 5 May 2008 • www.JCE.DivCHED.org • © Division of Chemical Education
In the Classroom Chickering, A. W.; Ehrmann, S. C. AAHE Bulletin 1996, 3–6. Buchholz, S.; Ullman, J. The Teaching Professor 2004, 18, 4. Garmston, R. J. Journal of Staff Development 2000, 21, 76–77. Jones, A. M. Bioscience Education E-Journal 2003, 2, 2–3. The Center for Teaching and Learning at Connecticut College. Teaching and Learning with PowerPoint. http://ctl.conncoll.edu/ pp (accessed Jan 2008). 13. Center for Teaching and Learning Services at the University of Minnesota. Active Learning with PowerPoint. http://www1.umn. edu/ohr/teachlearn/tutorials/powerpoint/ (accessed Jan 2008). 14. Cicchino, R.; Mirliss, D. Tablet PCs: A Powerful Teaching Tool. In World Conference on E-Learning in Corporate, Government, Healthcare, and Higher Education 2004; Richards, G., Ed.; AACE: Chesapeake, VA, 2004; pp 543–548. 15. Hulls, C. C. Using a Tablet PC for Classroom Instruction. In Frontiers in Education, 2005. FIE ‘05. Proceedings 35th Annual 8. 9. 10. 11. 12.
Conference; IEEE: Indianapolis, IN, Oct 19–22, 2005; pp T2G1–T2G-6. http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/iel5/10731/33854/01611911. pdf (access Jan 2008). 16. Loch, B. I. Tablet Technology in First Year Calculus and Linear Algebra Teaching. In Kingfisher Delta ‘05: The Fifth Southern Hemisphere Conference on Undergraduate Mathematics and Statistics Teaching and Learning; Nov 22–26, 2005; Queensland, Australia; pp 231–237. 17. Colwell, K. E. TechTrends 2004, 48, 35–39. 18. Bertuca, D. J. OCLC Systems and Services 2001, 17, 79–83.
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