They slam if you don’t post the .ppt at all, which pisses me off. The .ppt is my intellectual property, not to be distributed. It also is not meant to be a study sheet, but rather a discussion aid. Finally, I didn’t get a copy of the slides when I was an undergrad - I had to take notes (and I retained more by writing it all down).
OK - in truth I am channeling several faculty friends of mine. As a lecturer, I do whatever it takes (except for giving easy grades) to keep the students happy. If I get slammed, I don’t get asked back to teach a course. Fuck it - you want the .ppt, I will get someone to post it. AFTER I scrub it.
Aha. So, that would be a different problem altogether from formats. Now I see where you are coming from. I can absolutely understand wanting to protect your intellectual property. But, one question comes to mind - if the presentation is a discussion aid, does having the .ppt actually provide any real advantage if they didn’t take notes on the accompanying lecture and/or discussion?
Depends on how I write it. I now write an outline version for dissemination, and a detailed version for presentation. Unfortunately, some students will skip class if they think that they are getting everything from the .ppt - then they complain about material on the test that was not printed in the .ppt. Others want the .ppt BEFORE the class, so that they can print and take notes.
The next class I will probably release the redacted version in advance, and have less text on the screen.
Teaching the new generation is an interesting challenge, especially when they are sitting at their laptops during the class.
That’s probably the better way in general, IMHO. I would imagine that the students get more out of what you actually have to say about the topic at hand than they get out of what shows up on the screen, right?
(this would be assuming that they pay attention and take notes)