Conference Paper #1: Sequential art for science and CHI

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 Conference Paper #1: Sequential art for science and CHI


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 Reference Information
Title: Sequential Art for Science and CHI
Author: Duncan Rowland
Presentation Venue: CHI 2010: Monsters Attack! April 10-15, 2010 Atlanta, Georgia, USA

Summary
This paper is about how sequential art can be a better way of learning that traditional means such as a PowerPoint presentation. Rowland illustrates this through a series of web comics.  He describes how the human brain does not need every image to get the picture, and that given only snapshots, will fill in the missing events.  There were two experiments described in the article.

The first experiment consisted of a class of 8 and 9 year old students performing a science project, and documenting it with photos. At the end, the children assembled a photo-story for their projects.  While, there were some doubts about the effectiveness of the experiment, the results showed that the photostories helped engaged the students.

For the second experiment, participants went through a roller coaster, and had their expressions recorded.  The participants were given footage of their expressions, and asked to give some key images. Unfortunately, only 3 responded.

Discussion
 Should I even be calling this an article, or should it be considered a series of comics? Either way, it gets the point across.  In the first few images, I noticed that I was focusing intently on what was going on, and what was said, but soon it became more natural, and fluid.  As stated in the article, the brain fills in the empty spaces with what should go there.

I agree that in many instances, a PowerPoint presentation is not effective at all.  As a college student, I am seeing more and more professors using a PowerPoint presentation during their lectures, and also posting them online.  This is bad for two reasons: 1)It allows students to think that they can not show up to class, and get everything from the slides, and 2) It allows students to not pay attention during class because they plan on reviewing the slides later.  With the use of PowerPoint presentations, I have noticed that students will take few or no notes during class, and drift in and out. I think that sequential art could be used in some of these situations to keep the students attention, and teach them too.