Again with the PowerPoint
David Pogue writes articles and a blog for the technology section of the New York Times and produces occasional reports for CBS Sunday Morning. He also writes the "missing manual" series of books for people "disappointed" with the instructions that come with software they buy.A recent blog entry brought up one of my pet topics: clumsy use of presentation technology and software.
I quote from Pogue's recent blog to satisfy my own need to make the point again.
However, if you search blogs at Google, you’ll find that hundreds of people have cited and elaborated on Guy Kawasaki’s “10/20/30” rule for using PowerPoint. To me that says the message is not widespread enough yet.
Please!
Stop reading PowerPoint slides to people!
Stop using type too small to read easily from the back of the room!
Stop using so many slides!
Using PowerPoint With Discretion
“It’s trendy these days to make fun of PowerPoint pitches. ‘Death by PowerPoint’ is a hilarious buzzword that refers to truly awful boardroom pitches in which the speaker dully reads the bullet points off PowerPoint slides...
"The trick is to use PowerPoint well, not just to throw it out altogether. Yes, of course, don’t just read off the slide. Use the slide to illustrate what you’re saying, to provide a visual or to summarize your point. Don’t think that you need a slide every second, either; hit the B key (for a black screen) when there’s no particular purpose to having a slide up at this moment.”
And I refer back to my earlier attempts to make the same point:
Want some help and advice? Try these (especially the last one).
- Effective Use of PowerPoint: Online Tutorial from Bernard M. Baruch College Computing & Technology Center
- From the Sydney Morning Herald: Research points the finger at PowerPoint
"It is more difficult to process information if it is coming at you in the written and spoken form at the same time..." - The Gettysburg Powerpoint Presentation, 11/19/1863
"Good morning. Just a second while I get this connection to work. Do I press this button here? Function-F7? No, that's not right. Hmmm. Maybe I'll have to reboot. Hold on a minute Um, my name is Abe Lincoln and I'm your president. While we're waiting..."
Labels: pedagogy
posted by Ken Wedding @ 6:04 AM
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