Abstract:

Existing research on multimedia presentations in an educational context is mainly concerned with their effects on the audience. It neglects the fact, that presentations today are often used not only as a tool for teaching, but also as a method of active learning: In situations, where students are asked to research a topic and present it to their fellows, the act of communicating knowledge is only secondary to the antecedent process of constructing knowledge.

But as a small interview study showed, in preparing presentations students often circumvent this primary task by using simple executive procedures similar to those described by Carl Bereiter and Marlene Scardamalia in their model of Knowledge-telling and by Linda Flower in her account of Writer-Based prose: They prefer simple and unconnected facts to complex relations, copy readily available or conventional representations and follow a mainly egocentric focus. In consequence, important learning opportunities – both for authors and recipients – are missed.

To support students in a more instructive planning process, procedural facilitation in form of an alternative tablet-based presentation-application is proposed. Desirable steps and important tasks in the preperation of presentations were identified and corresponding representations and interaction possibilities developed. The resulting concept for a cognitive tool called Prethink offers salient and intuitive affordances for generating, analyzing, organizing, designing information. By these, students should be encouraged to prepare presentations in a way, that not only helps the audience, but first of all themselves to understand the contents of their talk.