I have concluded a couple of weeks of experimenting with multimedia to support my teaching and have come to some conclusions.

The most important is that, at least for my subject material, there are very limited learning benefits from developing teaching support resources beyond well structured web resources and podcasts — at least in terms of the time for production and the alternative uses of that time.

A key reason for this, is that for lecture material that is mostly argument or summary, synchronised video / text adds almost nothing to the learning experience (just as it almost nothing to a live lecture). The reason for this is that during a, well structured audio presentation the headings and structure should be obvious — if they are not, then the problem is in the spoken material not in the absence of supporting synchronised text (e.g., PowerPoint or similar slides).

Of course, this is not the case for colleagues who need to talk through complex diagrams or equations. For them, an electronic equivalent of interacting with the chalkboard might be very helpful.

One of my worries with typical powerpoint presentations is that there is a tendency to treat the text as the only method of engagement. I suspect that for a lone student listening and watching with headphones in a computer lab, library or study, this might be even more so the case — but impossible with audio only.

This cost-benefit analysis (rough as it is) must be essential to all such choices. I estimate to make a 30 min lecture, with synchronised audio and slides and decent production values would take at least a full working day (assuming the content is prepared). However, as I note, the incremental learning over an audio only production be are probably negligible. As such, that teaching time would be better spent answering email, extra tutorials, etc.