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Powerpoint-good or bad

SFG75

SFG75

Well-Known Member
The Aug. 30th Washington Post has an interesting article by Ruth Marcus titled: Powerpoint: Killer App. In it, Marcus mentions that some people blame NASA's latest problems on the program, which substitutes analytical thinking with a form of pretended analytical thinking and tends to squash important ideas into regimented bullets that fail to register with the user. Some of her more devastating points:

The deeper problem with the PowerPointing of America -- the PowerPointing of the planet, actually -- is that the program tends to flatten the most complex, subtle, even beautiful, ideas into tedious, bullet-pointed bureaucratese.
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And for the most powerful point(pun not indended)

Like all forms of torture, though, PowerPoint degrades its practitioners as well as its victims. Yes, boring slides were plentiful in the pre-PowerPoint era -- remember the overhead projector? Yes, it can help the intellectually inept organize their thoughts. But the seductive availability of PowerPoint and the built-in drive to reduce all subjects to a series of short-handed bullet points eliminates nuances and enables, even encourages, the absence of serious thinking. Really, why think at all when the auto-content wizard can do it for you?
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I do work in a school and I can assure you that technology is on the top of a lot of administrator's minds. If you want to earn some quick points, be sure to use the program often. I know teachers who have EVERY chapter they cover on powerpoint. I do utilize it from time to time, but to me, teaching is like pitching in baseball. You want a wide variety of pitches-not just one or two to give to the batter.

The most disturbing development in the world of PowerPoint is its migration to the schools -- like sex and drugs, at earlier and earlier ages. Now we have second-graders being tutored in PowerPoint. No matter that students who compose at the keyboard already spend more energy perfecting their fonts than polishing their sentences -- PowerPoint dispenses with the need to write any sentences at all. Perhaps the politicians who are so worked up about the ill effects of violent video games should turn their attention to PowerPoint instead.
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Article (registration required)

It's my personal belief that the internet, powerpoint, and the digital play-game culture are seriously destroying thought-analysis skills, as well as reading and writing. I would be interested in comparing the top 1% of classes in given area high school throughout the 20th century to the present day and compare them on word choice complexity and conventions. I would surmise that the students in the early industrial era would more than smoke kids today in terms of writing. Perhaps I'll work on that theory in a few years. :D

So what do you guys think?


***I didn't know where to put this. Since it is a topic dealing with reading an article, it doesn't quite fit in the general book discussion. I don't think it's too political, since we are discussing a piece of writing here. Apologies if this is in the wrong forum. :)
 
I think the thread is just right were it is.

I for one am not really fond of powerpoint. I have a few professors who use it, but they never use the program creatively, so it doesn't really add anything to a lecture. I think it can indeed be a useful tool (not just powerpoint, any program like it), as long as its used properly.

I agree with your baseball analogy by the way.
 
I have used PowerPoint at work for years. The biggest problem I've seen is that people put much too much detail in their slides, often creating eye charts that are difficult if not impossible to see in the back of the conference room.

I’ve seen them used in the classroom, and I love it. When I was taking classes at ODU, the professors often made their lecture outline, a PowerPoint presentation, available for download before class. As someone that is hearing impaired (high frequency hearing loss), it was a god-send.
 
I'm not sure which is the cart and which is the horse in this case, but I think the complaint may be backwards.

I am an engineer and have certainly given more than anyone's fair share of PowerPoint presentations -- and all other kinds that have ever existed -- going back to (near) the beginning of time. In my experience, where complicated results of technical research have to be presented to a technical audience, the challenge is always to try to get the conclusions across to people who have technical training but are not initmately aware of the particular area being presented. In that process it is always the details that get submerged and the main points highlighted, whether by the presenter themself or by automated bulletizing software. I don't think it argues that the process necessarily produces or implies stupidity either in front of the room or in the audience.
But I agree that endless sequences of bulletized charts quickly reduce any audience to a state of dead boredom, just as any teacher droning endlessly on will. (Especially when they tried to teach me grammar and syntax, as you see :))

Bullet point: The means of communication is not the cause of poor content.

See, it can be done, :)
Peder
 
Uhm... I think Powerpoint (and other presentation software) is one of the more important classes of software ever written, along with spreadsheets. It is precisely the fact that it allows a presenter to lay out his/her ideas in a way that depicts complex ideas in a potentially simple way that make it important. I say potentially because the presenter can make a mess of things, and make it difficult for viewers to digest information, much like what Robert has said.

I've seen my share of powerpoint-ware, both good and bad. But the software ultimately puts into the hands of its users a tool that *encourages* brevity and visual representation of ideas. I believe that's a good thing. I don't really subscribe to the notion that powerpoint 'dumbs down' the presenter.

In the spirit in which it is supposed to be used, I don't believe that powerpoint hinders analytical thinking at all. I'm often required to put into slides complex concepts into understandable diagrams and key points, and personally that takes more out of me (forcing me to think, which I don't do often) than simply brain dumping everything on the screen.

Saying that powerpoint is bad because lecturers may overuse it in presenting lectures is akin to saying Excel is bad because it allows me to write and print letters (as an example, I'm not singling out SFG's example) .

ds
 
Robert,
"Eye charts?"
"Virginia?"
I definitely get the scene!

Very best wishes,
Peder
 
Well, powerpoint in schools is old news here. It still used in Primaries and taught to students, but in Secondary schools the big thing now is smart boards. I think they are good and allow interactive teaching. Any points, suggestions, thoughts of the students can be immediately added on.
 
Wow, Stewart!
Just run fast if you say that around a UNIX/LINUX crowd!
Real fast!
Peder
 
Peder said:
Just run fast if you say that around a UNIX/LINUX crowd!
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Na. I often wonder how many of them claim their dislike for Microsoft just to "be cool". I think it may be more than half.
 
I think that article is ridiculous. It's like blaming video games for making children fat. Just because PowerPoint lets you condense things down doesn't mean you have to 'dumb' things down. Perhaps people are taking the easy way out by just putting up the points, rather than going into details. That's the fault of the instructors, not the software.

Personally, I'm a visual person, which means that if someone says something I won't get it. But if it's written down or drawn it'll stay with me. One of the great things about PowerPoint is that slides can be easily printed off in advance, and then written on with extra notes, like the things the instructor says. The instructor is also free to draw on a white board to compliment the slides and get the message across. That's my best learning environment.

clueless said:
...but in Secondary schools the big thing now is smart boards
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What's a 'Smart Board'?
 
Kookamoor said:
I think that article is ridiculous. It's like blaming video games for making children fat. Just because PowerPoint lets you condense things down doesn't mean you have to 'dumb' things down. Perhaps people are taking the easy way out by just putting up the points, rather than going into details. That's the fault of the instructors, not the software.

Personally, I'm a visual person, which means that if someone says something I won't get it. But if it's written down or drawn it'll stay with me. One of the great things about PowerPoint is that slides can be easily printed off in advance, and then written on with extra notes, like the things the instructor says. The instructor is also free to draw on a white board to compliment the slides and get the message across. That's my best learning environment.



What's a 'Smart Board'?
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Better yet when speakers use it right, and provides the notes on the handouts.
 
Robert said:
I thought LINUX was dieing a slow death?
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Robert,
Where I was, they hadn't heard! :)
Actually, I don't know whether it is or it isn't, but we may just have stumbled on the first objective scientific evidence that we are in different worlds. In my space they are determined and they are fanatic! And I spent a lot of time runnng. :)
Peder
 
Smart boards? Oh my, yet another thing for me to learn. :eek: ;) I have seen some good and bad presentations. The good ones have a few details up, but the presenter knows how to fill in the lines so to speak. The bad ones to me overcram them with chingles and jingles and fancy stuff, along with writing from top to bottom in most slides. Sensory overloaded presentations are just.....a bit much for me IMHO.
 
Smart boards are a replacement for the blackboard. You can project files into them, but you can also write on them with an electronic pen and save anything you have added. When they were first introduced, only the teacher had access to a computer, later they gave computers to the students and now in some schools they are given them laptops. They are great. You can download interactive maps for geography lessons, grids and graphics for maths, show a documentary for history, use it to give exercises and work to the student, save the lesson to use in the future, students who have been ill can catch up. It's very easy to learn to use. I don't think there is any downside to it.
 
SFG75 said:
Smart boards? Oh my, yet another thing for me to learn. :eek: ;) I have seen some good and bad presentations. The good ones have a few details up, but the presenter knows how to fill in the lines so to speak. The bad ones to me overcram them with chingles and jingles and fancy stuff, along with writing from top to bottom in most slides. Sensory overloaded presentations are just.....a bit much for me IMHO.
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Agreed, good ones are those with few words and wordings that are clear for audiences to read.. and of course with a few illustrations but not overdone with..

not so good are always too wordy, with dark background, with fancifully-decorated background, with words too small...

just came back from some sort of project presentation and was irritated by those bad ones, and nearly doze off in class.. :eek:
 
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