I provide class notes for my students. I write them using a word
processor, not PowerPoint. I happen to use Micro$oft Word, but I save
the files in Rich Text Format (RTF) so my students can open them with
any word processing program written in the last 20 years.
I format them with Cornell Notes margins, and I encourage my students to
use the huge left margins to highlight key points (as suggested in the
Cornell Notes system) and the summary area at the bottom of each page
either for an actual summary (as suggested in the Cornell Notes system)
or for other things they might want to write down.
I make the notes available to my students in advance via my MOODLE site.
(<http://www.mrbigler.com/moodle/> if you want to browse, steal, or
critique them; pretty much all of the content is available via guest
access.) I used to print them out so each student had a hardcopy to
write on, but I found that copying a ream of paper every day (3-4 pages
of notes plus a worksheet, times 130 students) was taking up too much of
my time, not to mention using up more paper than my school had budgeted
for.)
I display the notes on a Smart Board and I use the Smart Board to write
all over the notes as the spirit moves me. But I don't follow my own
notes to the letter. The endpoint of each class is a given--they need
to be able to do the assignment--but I let each class determine its own
path through the content, using the notes as a touchstone to make sure I
stay on task and present what I intend to present.
I think my notes pretty good, but they're not what I'd call great
yet--there are still some things missing and probably plenty of errors
that I'm either unaware of or haven't gotten around to fixing. But my
students find them useful. I get a fairly high level of engagement in
class. I'm guessing this is at least partly because the students who
would be the most dutiful about taking detailed notes end up annotating
or highlighting things they think are important, and spend the rest of
the time asking questions and participating in the discussion.
I don't glue myself to one spot. I climb onto the demonstration table
and jump off of it (conversion of gravitational PE to KE). I run across
the room (positive velocity), then while still facing the same
direction, run backwards to the starting point (negative velocity). I
swing a bucket of water in a circle over my head. I move around, not
because I think it matters whether a lecturer moves around, but because
much of the physics I teach is about motion, and I need to move to
demonstrate it. I don't think being rooted to the spot is so much a
question of delivering the notes via a Smart Board vs. a tablet PC as it
is a question of having the notes pre-written so I can spend the time
demonstrating and getting students to participate in demos, instead of
having to spend the time writing.
As for portability, having the notes in the form of text documents means
I can download them from my MOODLE site from any device that has
internet access (including my phone), and/or keep a copy on a flash
drive. Because they're in RTF format, I can edit them on just about any
computer that has a word processing program.
--
Jeff Bigler
Lynn English HS; Lynn, MA, USA
"Magic" is what we call Science before we understand it.