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Problem: Boring Web Lectures. Solution: New Web Formats
- Ronald E LaPorte (25 February 2000)
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Ronald E LaPorte
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Sir: Continuing education lectures on the web are exceedingly boring. Often each slide has one piece of information, and a 45-minute lecture when presented takes two hours to view as each slide can take five minutes to appear. One is forced to serially see each slide without obtaining additional information. A primary reason that lectures on the web are so boring is because of Bill Gate's success. Now it is so easy to convert slide presentations into web ones using software such as PowerPoint. The problem is that this leads to a very boring lecture. It is time for a change. Here we briefly discuss what new technologies can do, and more details are available in our web page at ( http://www.pitt.edu/~ghnet/USAF/index.htm). We have been establishing two formats, the first having as its primary unit the slide, the second the lecture. The slide format is designed to speed the access of information and to provide an overall gestalt for a medical lecture. Downloading speed is one of the most important determinants of slide web presentation. If a slide takes a minute to be seen, people rapidly lose their interest. We have recently found that it is even more important than content itself. The difficulty is that many medical slides have huge complex images and graphs. The more information in the slide, the slower the downloading times. Most access the Internet through twisted wires (the telephone), not high-speed lines. Downloading speed, however, can be markedly improved by a factor of ten by reducing pixels from the slides using readily available software such as Adobe Photoshop. This does not compromise the quality of slides, but produces a remarkable reduction in downloading time. A second feature of this model is slides at a glance. If we are learning, or if we plan to borrow someone else's slides, the serial nature of slides is very boring, because it is difficult to skip from slide 12 to slide 50, or to see the big picture for the lecture. However, all lectures should use as we have developed slides at a glance, which presents all the slides for view at once. With this one can pull slides down for use in other lectures, or for use into other lectures. A second model is what we call hypertext comic books (1). This is a windows model of lecture presentation. It is like a Superman comic but with hyperlinks. When examining a slide, it becomes alive as there are further notes that can be read concerning the slides, and most importantly links that can take the learner or the teacher to areas on the web for further information such as statistics books, etc. The technologies to provide better slides and lectures on the web for training in health are becoming available, and should be used. It is time to establish new models as the web offers unique opportunities to markedly facilitate the training of our students and us. Akira Sekikawa, M.D., Ph.D.
References 1. Aaron DJ, Sekikwa A, Sauer F, Patrick J, Nishimura R, Acosta B, LaPorte RE. The reincarnation of biomedical journals as hypertext comic books. Nature Medicine 4, 1998. http://medicine.nature.com/web_specials/comics/#contributors |
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