Oh, you poor thing.

Since he's new, what kind of relationship do you have with him? Do you have enough trust between you yet that you can have a frank conversation with him?

I do suggest you get some of Ruth Clark's books. Her books on cognitive load are very good and she talks specifically about extraneous clip art and how it inhibits learning. Efficiency In Learning is a great book as is Elearning and the Science of Instruction-- both by Clark.

quote:

Originally posted by Amy_L:
Oh, you poor thing.

Since he's new, what kind of relationship do you have with him? Do you have enough trust between you yet that you can have a frank conversation with him?

I do suggest you get some of Ruth Clark's books. Her books on cognitive load are very good and she talks specifically about extraneous clip art and how it inhibits learning. Efficiency In Learning is a great book as is Elearning and the Science of Instruction-- both by Clark.

Unfortunately, we don't yet have the kind of relationship to have a frank coversation. And, when people "see" his presntations, they're wowed. I'll take a look at those books. Thanks alot!

Civet,

Is is part of your job to train the training director? If no, I'd stay out of it. Amy's question is key to this - what kind of relationship do you have with this person? I'm assuming here that your own knowledge isn't far enough along to teach anyone how to train - since you are not familiar with resources to back up your arguments. So far, all I hear is that you don't like PowerPoint slides; and that you don't know any alternative to discuss with the training director. How seriously do you think he will take what you have to say? If you can demonstrate good techniques yourself, that will be sufficient to sway the director to another approach - provided he indeed thinks it is better - and he may not.

I still think though that you are not responsible for what your training director does. By all means, read all the books LoveLearning and Amy suggest - especially Ruth Clark's books, and improve your own training presentations and methods first.

Besides, doing away with PowerPoint is not going to make one a good trainer/facilitator.

I'd echo the previous comments. However, if you want a study that emphasises why you should avoid 'death by powerpoint', here it is.

Let's cut to the chase...

As I see it, ask yourself the following questions...

What is the problem that needs solving?
Will a ppt delivery help solve the problem?
Will a different delivery method solve the problem?

If using sound, animation, video, color, pictures and text will solve a particular training problem, then ppt may be a very useful tool to help you solve that problem.

But I don't think that is what you are getting at are you?

You can tell this person all day long that ppt isn't solving any training delivery problems, but nobody likes to be told they are doing something wrong.

Somehow, you need to measure the results of the training and eventually tie it back to the delivery method used in order to get him to realize that the training delivery is inadequate. Be careful how you measure it though, you may not like the results.

I don't believe an empirical study is going to help you convince anyone in this case because one has multiple choices for training delivery methods when presented with a selection and the problem at hand. So, every instance of poor training could conceivably be tied to "special cause", rendering any evidence offered by an empirical study useless and irrelevant.

Your challenge is to get this guy to realize the problem on his own.

By the way, I share your pain. I finally broke myself away from the .ppt spell about three years ago. I don't use it for more than two-three times per year now.

Bryan