This was the question debated at the recent BETT show. Three well-established colleagues in the field of educational technology in the UK each talked for up to 10 minutes on the theme, and I acted as Chair. The speakers were:

Tim Tarrant, Training & Development Agency for Schools

Phil Bourne, Specialist Schools and Academies Trust

Steve Moss, Partnership for Schools

Some spice was added to the proceedings by the use of a "voting" system provided by Quizdom to determine whether members of the audience changed their own minds as a result of the debate.

Here is what the audience thought before the presentations:

And here is what they thought after the presentations:

Interestingly enough, voting systems have replaced interactive whiteboards -- despite the fact that to the best of my recollection they were not even mentioned during the debate. I suppose it shows that actually using something like this is much better than merely describing how it might be used.

PowerPoint has dropped out completely, whilst YouTube has made a grand entrance. Listen to the podcast to find out who said what, and why their arguments proved so persuasive.

One of the questions in my mind is: how far are such dramatic changes of mind permanent? Perhaps what will happen is that some people will now rethink their use of PowerPoint and some will start to explore YouTube. It's a shame we can't do a follow-up study really. Still, at least we have an interesting snapshot of the change in people's views following a debate.

The sound quality of the podcast improves after a few minutes. Enjoy.

Podcast file

What do you think? Please leave a comment.