Our Lady Joan Mastodon switched on the projector and selected Full Screen. She had chosen the tastefully understated Northern Breeze style from her customised set of Powerpoint templates. The title of her talk, "How we can beat the Great Algo" was set rather whimsically in Eric Gill's Joanna at 32pt, large enough to be read clearly from the back of the crowded hall.

As she turned around to address her audience, she saw the last of her knights fleeing through the gate. It was Sir Galahad, who at his age had lost much of the nimbleness that had characterised his younger self.

Our Lady Joan never again tried to inflict slides onto her knights. Talks by the fire it was, from that day onwards.

No one was better at learning from mistake and defeat than our Lady Joan. Bless her memory.

#JoanMastodon #noSlides #noPowerpoint

Used the whiteboard in my lecture today. Free speaking, working through the case in open dialogue.

No slides. Slides destroy the student's engagement, they present the material as fixed, whereas it is alive and needs to be called out.

My institution has rules that require us to use slides. I could not bear the suffocation any longer and just broke the rules. I will have to find some acceptable mix that maintains overall compliance, with the occasional free session smuggled in.

It was so liberating to be able to be in open dialogue with the material, no predetermined progression, the students experiencing the actual construction of knowledge live, sensing the personal investment needed to obtain truth.

The students were on board. Took notes, asked questions, talked to each other when I set them a task. Real learning, live in the classroom. Learning as joyful work, not as consumption. It is possible.

#lectures #pedagogy #HigherEducation #AcademicChatter #noSlides #constructivism