The swinging ball of death: another example of using objects as visual aids

This is the latest in a series of posts on the effectiveness of using an object as a visual aid (for a selection of others, see the links below) and comes from one of the Royal Institution's Christmas lectures for children by Professor Chris Bishop.

Apart from the sheer entertainment value, at least three other points are worth noting.

1. The eager excitement on the faces of the audience after he tells them he's going to let go of the steel ball.
2. The way in which they are paying close enough attention to be able to join in the 'countdown' for the second two of the three numbers.
3. How their focus on the swinging ball is so precise that they start clapping at exactly the moment at which the ball reaches its closest point to the professor's forehead.

OTHER POSTS ON USING OBJECTS AS VISUAL AIDS:

• Showing what you mean: more from Professor Sir Lawrence Bragg
• Objects as visual aids: Obama & Archbishop Sentamu in action
• Steve Jobs shows how to use an object as a visual aid (and how to speak about it)
• If Bill Gates doesn't read bullet points from PowerPoint slides
• No flies on Obama
• Senator Scott Brown shows how to use a newspaper as a visual aid

(See also Speech-making and Presentation Made Easy, pp.67-69)

Einstein 'chalk & talk' competition

Twitter strikes again: without it, I might never have heard about this terrific way of modifying the picture of Einstein that was featured in the first of my posts on 'chalk & talk' a few days ago - so thanks again to Olivia Mitchell for tweeting it.

It suggests a competition for the best entry on the blackboard.

All you have to do is to click on 'modifying the picture' above, write whatever you like on the blackboard and email your version of the picture to me before 10th September.

PRIZE: The best entry will receive a free signed copy of Lend Me Your Ears: All You Need to Know about Making Speeches and Presentations OR Speech-making and Presentation Made Easy - in both of which there's more on the relative merits of 'chalk & talk', PowerPoint and other types of visual aid.

Meanwhile, you can mug up on related issues from these earlier posts:

PREVIOUS POSTS ON CHALK & TALK
• PowerPoint and the demise of Chalk & Talk: (1) The beginning of the end
• PowerPoint and the demise of Chalk & Talk: (2) The lost art
• PowerPoint and the demise of Chalk & Talk: (3) Glimmers of hope

PREVIOUS POST ON OBJECTS AS VISUAL AIDS
• Objects as visual aids: Obama & Archbishop Sentamu in action

PREVIOUS POSTS ON POWERPOINT INCLUDE
• PowerPoint program on BBC Radio 4
• BBC Television News slideshow quiz
• How NOT to use PowerPoint
• If Bill Gates doesn’t read bullet points from PowerPoint slides …
• An imaginative innovation in a PowerPoint presentation
• PowerPoint presentation continues to dominate BBC News – courtesy Robert Peston (again)
• Slidomania contaminates another BBC channel
• There’s nothing wrong with PowerPoint – until there’s an audience
• BBC Television News: produced by of for morons?
• PowerPoint comes to church

If Bill Gates doesn't read bullet points from PowerPoint slides ...

I’ve just been watching a talk by Bill Gates on How I'm trying to change the world now - the full version of which can be seen HERE.

Unfortunately, his plans for changing the world don't seem to extend to instructing Microsoft to withdraw, or at least radically overhaul, their market-leading presentation software.

Apart from his subject matter (defeating malaria and improving the quality of teaching), there were three other things about his presentation that struck me as interesting.

1. Bill Gates knows better than to read bullet points from PowerPoint slides
Although he showed a few slides (mainly pictures, maps and graphs), he did not use any that consisted of long lists of bullet points, and therefore didn’t have to keep turning round and reading from them – like the vast majority of PowerPoint users I’ve seen over the years.

If the founder of Microsoft has no use for the opening templates PowerPoint offers to its users (i.e. headings and lists), why doesn't he have any qualms about allowing his company to make millions of dollars from giving millions of people the false impression that listing bullet points is a sure-fire route to making an effective presentation?

2. Bill Gates knows that some technologies can help teachers but not that others can hinder them
Although he singles out video and DVD as technologies that can help to improve the quality of teaching, he seems completely unaware that other technologies, (e.g. PowerPoint, electronic whiteboards, etc.) might be reducing the quality of teaching.

Again, isn’t it time he woke up to the fact that PowerPoint may have led thousands of teachers and lecturers down a blind alley that's leaving millions of students a year in a state of boredom and/or confusion?

3. Bill Gates knows that objects can be used as effective visual aids
Apart from the applause for his announcement that he was going to give everyone in the audience a free copy of a book, the most positive response came when he took the lid off a jar and pretended to release mosquitoes into the auditorium (see below).

This may be about as far away from relying on PowerPoint slides as you can get, but is a simple and effective form of visual aid (for more on which, see HERE where you can watch examples of the Archbishop of York and Barack Obama doing something similar).

If only Microsoft would preach what its founder practises, there might be a chance of saving the world from the ever-spreading epidemic of death by PowerPoint.