Meaningful theory about slideware

- One of the most important theoretical ideas…about PowerPoint in teaching is Richard Mayer's…Model of Multimedia Learning, and how it relates…to working memory.…Multimedia Theory deals with how viewers,…students in this case, manage, retain…and transfer information from multiple input streams.…And right off the bat, this challenges one of the…main assumptions about communication,…particularly in regards to teaching.…Instructors often assume that communication…occurs between a speaker and a listener…in a kind of uninterrupted stream,…where everything you say to a class just passes…unfiltered into the minds of your learners,…who by all rights should remember it.…

But that's very rarely what happens.…In truth, you may express an idea perfectly clearly,…but some other combination of responses…is likely to occur.…The first of these, which is the ideal,…is meaningful learning where a learner…accurately retains the core of what you want to express…and can subsequently apply it.…Much more common though, if fragmented learning,…