Tuesday, March 16, 2010

eChalk and Talk

Having moved laterally into teaching after 12 years in Industry, one area where I realized I need more practice was in the effective use of the black board. I realized early on that explaining an example on board used to take me more time compared to explaining on a pre prepared/planned presentation. Another problem was that to explain sorting, I had to juggle with a lot of numbers and presentation become more cumbersome to pull up to explain a particular doubt.
So I improvised and started using “eChalk” !! I discovered the use of MS Excel a bit more for this purpose. This led to the first excel sheet to explain different kinds of sort.
Excel can also be used to explain something on the fly, easy to type in numbers and even to make diagrams. I explained Binary Search Trees using an excel sheet
To capture brainstorming ideas or discussion points, excel can also be of help.
Some key features
• Typing Numbers
• Color Coding
• Drawing Diagrams
• Zoom in facility
So normally there is phrase used “Chalk and Talk” what do you think about “eChalk and Talk”

Check out Sorting Excel Sheet
Sorts Explained