LEFT FIELD:Let's throw out the overhead projectors and return to interactive discussion, writes FERDINAND VON PRONDZYNSKI

ALMOST exactly 30 years ago, I began work as a full-time university lecturer in Trinity College Dublin.

That same month, there were some 15 or so other new lecturers starting in the university, and to get us into the mood, we were given an induction course. I don’t remember all that much about the course now (though I did meet my wife there), but one session was all about the use of “overheads”.

Back then, this was a reference to the use of acetate slides on an overhead projector. To me, this always seemed to be a hugely clunky teaching tool – a big machine that tended to make a lot of noise and overheat, requiring either pre-prepared slides (and I cannot even remember how the printing of these was undertaken), or using felt-tip pens to write on a roll of transparent sheeting resting on the projector.

Most annoyingly of all, it was thought to be good practice to put a piece of paper over those parts of the slide that were not yet being discussed, and to pull down the sheet gradually to reveal each new bit of wisdom.

In the years that followed, I often saw speakers who were giving a lecture or a conference presentation struggle with this equipment – including the time when a spectacularly boring speaker at one event knocked over the projector, though it must be said that this rather enlivened an otherwise tedious event.

As he tried to re-set the projector, he accidentally stood on his slides and slipped on them. Bless the poor guy, but it was the highlight of the speech.

Occasionally, I tried to use overheads at lectures. On one occasion, I had spent hours copying a type-written set of bullet points via some machine or other on to an acetate, only to find that the type was so small that absolutely nobody could read it – myself included – once it had been beamed on to the screen. I overcame the moment of embarrassment by taking my felt-tip pen and drawing little cartoon pictures of the then college dean all over it, to the great satisfaction of the students. You may not think so, but trust me, I was a great lecturer.

And then along came Microsoft’s PowerPoint. At first, it was a computerised way of creating slides for overhead projectors (at least for me); and then, gradually, it became a way of producing an electronic presentation sent directly to a projector. It revolutionised the whole idea of how you could present a topic and make it memorable. And a decade-and-a-half later, PowerPoint, and a number of its competitors, are everywhere.

The problem now is that, all too often, the medium has become the message, and the presentation doesn’t so much illustrate the point as obscure the fact that there isn’t one. The standard approach – 36 slides spelling out all the key points, with the presentation printed out for everyone in the room – increasingly represents bad practice, as it may actually inhibit the intellectual connection between the presenter, the topic and the audience, creating an automated process of very little value.

Of course it can be done much better, but generally it isn’t, and these days, when I enter a room where a projector has been set up, my heart sinks.

But now, in the US, a campaign has begun to bring this to an end. One US college, the Southern Methodist University, is removing all computers from classrooms; and a recent survey undertaken in England by the University of Central Lancashire has found that 59 per cent of students found lectures were becoming dull and that this was connected to the use of PowerPoint.

So what is increasingly being proposed is that lecturers should get used to “teaching naked”, which I hasten to add is the practice of not using technological props, and to return to the concept of a university class as a forum for intellectual interaction between faculty and students, which is often inhibited by the use of PowerPoint.

I suspect there is room here for questions about babies and bath water, but it does seem right that we should remind ourselves that technology, including PowerPoint, is not an end in itself but at best a tool. Its use has probably had some positive effects, such as persuading lecturers to structure what they are saying, but on the other hand it has become so much the expected thing that too many teachers no longer think properly about what value it is adding, and have allowed it to stifle debate rather than clarify content.

I had already reached this conclusion 10 years ago, as I was embarking upon my final year as a lecturer. Back then, I decided to ensure that in every second lecture I used no technology at all and focused instead on interactive discussion. So maybe I was ahead of my time.

Ferdinand von Prondzynski is a former president of DCU.

In March 2011, he will take up a new post as principal and vice chancellor of Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, Scotland.