Time to bring back the chalk to the talk-face

Richard Marquiss would like to pull the plug on the overhead projector

I recently attended a research presentation where I became rapidly mesmerised by the use made by the presenter of our old friend the overhead projector. Within a relatively short time what seemed like dozens of acetates were put on to and taken off the OHP, with all of the dull, flip-flop monotony of a car's windscreen wipers and with about as much educational value. We didn't have enough time to look at and savour the slides and, in any case, they seemed to mirror fairly exactly what the presenter was saying. I remember thinking about the benefit that the OHP had contributed to that particular session and rapidly came to the conclusion that it offered none at all.

Now, don't get me wrong. It is clear that the OHP is a really useful little gadget when it is used properly and with due restraint. However, it is also clear to me that the OHP is seriously overused and, in particular, is considered by some to be a kind of badge or totem of what "proper" teaching should be like nowadays. Without one growling away, on the desk, constantly tended by a circling member of staff, the educational experience might be considered old-fashioned. Chalk and talk, for goodness sake!

Now, there is no doubt that one of the most encouraging features of higher education in recent years, especially in the wake of the teaching quality assessment process, has been the greater thought and effort that has been put into the core business of teaching. Indeed, anything that can assist in providing a more effective and stimulating learning experience for our students - and the OHP has a role here - is to be encouraged.

Oddly enough though, the use of the OHP can seriously backfire. Witness Marquiss's Law - place too much emphasis upon the use of the OHP in any session and the bulb will assuredly blow after one minute and no replacement will be available. Also, overuse can lead, in my view, to the undervaluing of the spoken word, leading to students obsessively copying down every word from acetates but perhaps listening less carefully to the teacher who increasingly occupies a peripheral role. (This may, of course, be precisely the teacher's intention, particularly those colleagues who can't stand eye contact with some of their more challenging classes.) Some of my colleagues will be smiling indulgently, having already consigned the OHP to the bin marked "yesterday's technology" in favour of DVPs, data video projectors. But I remain concerned that excessive commitment to technology at the chalk-face of teaching can have very detrimental effects.

Whatever helpful gadgets come our way as teachers in higher education - and we need all help that we can get - we must maintain our central faith in our own capacity as professional communicators, and in the ability (and attention span) of our audience to absorb and make sense of the spoken word - effectively delivered and sensibly paced.

Meanwhile, I gloomily anticipate future sessions when lecturers and presenters will stand up and say "Good morning" accompanied by the mandatory slide which reads, of course, "Good morning". References to the weather will be flashed up and copied down by the audience. But I must stop - this is getting silly.

Richard Marquiss is principal lecturer in social policy, Nottingham Trent University.