“You present an engineering problem, like a fighter plane that’s returned to base shredded by antiaircraft fire, and ask students where they would put extra armor,” said Mr. Tront. Students circle various parts of the plane that took a lot of hits. “You can show their solutions one by one and discuss them,” he said.

And if no one catches on to the trick — this was a plane that made it back safely; the damage was irrelevant, and it’s the undamaged areas that were probably hit on the planes that went down, so those areas need protection — the professor can discuss the logic behind that, too. —Josh Fischman —Take Several Tablets for Teaching: Interactive Scribbling Draws Students Into Classroom Presentations (Chronicle of Higher Education)

I blogged this because I like the cool engineering example. That’s like the curious incident of the dog in the night — the dog that did not bark (thus indicating that it knew a particular night visitor).

I am a fan of technology, but in this example I can see it being just as effective if you pass out printouts, have students mark them up in pencil, then use a document camera to project their anonymous suggestions.

I only give a handful of slideshows a year. If students get bored after about 10 minutes of a slideshow, and I had 20 minutes of material, I would probably break up the presentation (giving them a small-group writing assignment).