Up until now each class I've taken has had a pattern. Read a chapter, read the lecture. The lecture is either a PDF file or a PowerPoint file and it goes over the matching chapter, highlighting the key points.

This latest class on Human Computer Interaction has an instructor who went a bit overboard.

For Chapter 1, he provided the lecture notes in PowerPoint. He also provided them as a PDF. He also provided them as a three part audio lecture, where you hit "play" and the slides scroll past while he narrates the notes.

I appreciate him providing options - but he doesn't make it clear in the download area that they *are* options. So I sat there going through all of the files one by one and had to compare them side by side to ensure I wasn't missing something.

It turns out his audio commentary missed out on a number of slides, so it looks like I should use the PowerPoint version to make sure I don't miss on important slides.

Still, let's assume they did all match 100%. Which would you prefer?

Since people learn in different ways, it's nice to have options.

Also it depends on how dynamic a speaker or Powerpoint presentation maker he is.

All things being equal though, I learn best from something like a PDF.

I definitely would rather read PowerPoint slides than sit and listen to someone speak at me. I absorb better going at my own pace.

I much prefer pdf's (even if they are pdf's autoconverted from slides) to powerpoint. PDF's are much easier to use as a student and more accessible. If I have extra time and network access somewhere, I'll often log in and do some extra studying. pdf readers are much more ubiquitous than powerpoint. I can read pdfs on my phone, for instance, or the crummy spare laptop in our conference room at work.

Narrated slides are harder to go back and use for a reference. Plus, personally, I'll skip thru some slides (the stuff I'm pretty comfortable with) and read others 3 or 4 times until I understand them. In a live situation, you can ask questions when you are confused. But in a prerecorded presentation doesn't work as well. For review for my GIAC certifications, they give you access to audio of the last session of the class and annotated slides. You can go thru the slides along with the audio or alone, or just listen to the audio (though of course, it references the slides.) I actually prefer that to narrated slides - I'll usually read the material and then listen to the audio portion for review while doing other tasks.

Julie

I like the powerpoint slides that have ample notes on them. The ones that just have the bullet points are missing a lot of detail to them, they assume the professor will fill that in while he's talking I suppose