1.3 Human Factors

A very important factor that must be taken into consideration when categorizing the slides and eventually displaying them in sections and topics stems from the method that humans use to perceive, relate, and memorize visual information. Humans tend to relate certain memories and facts not only to the time they occurred, but more interestingly to the location they occurred at. This notion is rooted in the saying by which "re-visiting old places one re-lives old memories." Historically, this concept has been considered by the ancient Romans, in what is called "the Forum Romanum Method."

"Roman senators used to carefully prepare an impressive structure of their speech and a well-considered sequence of their arguments. They debated without written notes, and thus it was important to not forget any detail.

In preparing their arguments, the Roman speakers walked through the streets and visited numerous places in the city, while fixing keywords to columns, archways, or fountains. During their speech to the senate they would imagine themselves re-visiting the same trail, and re-visiting all of the landmarks and famous buildings, only to remember the original sequence of arguments they planned to bring forth in their speech."

Bruno Klumpp, method.de, 1998, 2001, translated from: http://www.method.de/dm/my/dmme002.htm

In a similar fashion, we can imagine students to remember certain topics by the way they were presented in class. A classroom is not as large as Rome or the Forum Romanum so that we may relate a topic to numerous parts of the classroom, yet we can classify the type of media used to convey information. To this effect, we have found 5 predominant types of media:

1. Board: Black board, white board
2. Class: View of the students during a discussion, etc.
3. Computer: Material presented with the computer, e.g. PowerPoint slides, web sites, etc.
4. Podium: View of the instructor not using the board, e.g. in a discussion with the class, announcing assignments, etc.
5. Sheet: Overhead view of material committed to paper

In a typical class, not all media are used; instructors tend to choose either the Board or Sheet. All other types are used every now and then. Arguably, this type of classification is not as effective as relating the class content to a location in the classroom, but it may still help in providing a more classified visual representation.