Material intended to educate is most useful when it is searchable, when it can be processed without a computer, and when the audience can determine the speed with which information is presented.
Thus, to guarantee that educational material has no lasting power, has a limited audience, and will ultimately fail to present new information as efficiently as possible, choose one of the following presentation formats:
* Video : The ultimate cop-out. Why organize the material and present it in a thoughtful manner when one can just start babbling at a webcam? And the audience has no idea whether you are wasting their time until the end credits roll -- surely that very suspense will keep them interested!
* Audio : Sure, the audience can do something else while listening -- which ensures that they are not concentrating on the material. As for the rest, see Video.
* Scribd and similar web-only readers : No reading offline (e.g. in a plane/train/limo)? Limitations on copy/paste? Latency for every page turn? Sounds awesome! The only thing missing is to require a login in order to read something. Oh, you're working on that too? Fan-tucking-fastic!
Seriously, any educator unwilling to invest time in writing up their material is unlikely to be presenting anything well-thought-out or well-researched. Learn to write or go home!
