Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Death by PowerPoint

As a member of the ITTE mailing list I happened upon a discussion about the pros and cons of using PowerPoint for teaching and learning. I was very interested by the discussion, as it is a topic that I feel quite passionate about, especially in primary education. I see my students using PowerPoint (PPT) regularly in their lessons with varying degrees of success. Some students seem to assume that the magic of the PPT will some how impart great knowledge upon the children with whom they are sharing it, with very little intervention from them. Most of us will admit that we have been put to sleep by a lengthy PPT, and will also admit we have used a PPT as a crutch to support a difficult or dry topic. But is it really magic?

An extract from Edward Tufte’s essay on PowerPoint
“In corporate and government bureaucracies, the standard method for making a presentation is to talk about a list of points organized onto slides projected up on the wall. For many years, overhead projectors lit up transparencies, and slide projectors showed high-resolution 35mm slides. Now "slideware" computer programs for presentations are nearly everywhere. Early in the 21st century, several hundred million copies of Microsoft PowerPoint were turning out trillions of slides each year. Alas, slideware often reduces the analytical quality of presentations. In particular, the popular PowerPoint templates (ready-made designs) usually weaken verbal and spatial reasoning, and almost always corrupt statistical analysis. What is the problem with PowerPoint? And how can we improve our presentations?”

Here is another link that is worth a look. It will make you think the next time you sit down to either create a PPT or watch someone else's!

Death by PowerPoint
View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: tips

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've just taken a peek at the my space link. I actually found myself laughing out loud (I don't get out much!). How many times have I watched speakers read directly from the screen (willing them to spontaneously combust!). Do they assume half of us can't read??? Keep posting the funnies Mandy - they're a great distraction from work!

Anonymous said...

One slide after another can be very boring. You only need a few slides - ones that get get pupils thinking and talking about the subject. It's not the slide that matters so much it's what you do with the slide.

Anonymous said...

Must admit to producing a PPT with over 30 slides exciting -Eh!