PowerPoint - Spring 2010 Monday section
Monday SectionPowerPoint… Evil?
After reading the article by Tufte and listening to the NPR segment on PowerPoint, what are your reactions to the opinions expressed? Are teacher-centered uses of technology more or less effective than student-centered uses of technology?
Please click on the "comment" link below to submit your thoughts
posted by Elizabeth Langran @ 3/28/2010 07:56:00 PM
14 Comments:
Nothing like a little controversy with the morning coffee.
I agree with Tufte that, "The standard PowerPoint presentation elevates format over content, betraying an attitude of commercialism that turns everything into a sales pitch." That said, we can deconstruct his statement to something less incendiary and agree that learning to express and sell a point of view is not without merit.
In many respects, much of teaching and much of personal dialog and conversational interaciton is a sale pitch. We are all looking to "sell" people to our point of view whether about hem lengths, the danger to the free world of Sara Palin and her ilk or whether one should adopt shelter dogs or purebreds. The issue is not, I believe, the value of the powerpoint thought process, but where in the learning cycle it belongs.
As a woman of a certain age, I did not learn powerpoint until well into my 40s. Moreover, as both editorials discuss, I had to learn how to think in powerpoint. I remember clearly the day I began to write in powerpoint as contrasted to writing in word and then "translating."
This was a good day. I had busy clients, many of whom grew up on Sesame Street with the attendant attention span deficits that accompanied it. Furthermore, many were uncomfortable with data and frightened by tables of numbers. By compressing the story in key take-aways and using Chart Wizard to provide a graphic story, I was not shortchanging the process but inviting others into it. Thus, I believe that Tufte's anti-graph screed (for adults and business people) is over amplified.
And yes, endless slides are painful. Gifted presenters use the slides as reference and speak, emote and PRESENT about them and engage their audience. Reading them is never acceptable presentation style. To Tufte's point, however, I agree that there is a time and place in teaching students to present. Presenting is salesmanship and one should not attempt to sell until one is fully versed in the product.
I believe whole heartedly that teaching young students to prepare powerpoint expositions before they have learned to express themselves in quality prose with clear logic leading to conclusions is beset with long-term dangers. Maybe.
Perhaps the world is changing and it is less the lengthy dialog that will command the future of communication than the ability to cut to the chase and present concise, conclusion-worthy information.
Critical thinking and drawing logical, shareable ideas is essential to develop an educated populace. Powerpoint cannot replace thinking but perhaps it is a stronger support technology than its critics are willing to concede.
I think that Tufte is exaggerating in his tirade against PowerPoint. He says, "...children are being taught how to formulate client pitches and infomercials" rather than write reports. I doubt many teachers are replacing valuable writing assignments with PowerPoint presentations. PowerPoint is not meant to replace written work but to serve as a visual in oral presentations. Speaking in front of a group is an important skill. If used properly, Powerpoint can help the audience follow the speaker by cluing them it into what is being said and where the speech is going. PowerPoint should not be used excessively but what is the harm in having students, maybe once a semester, present an oral report with a few PowerPoint slides to help get their point across? As a high school teacher, I can see the value. For elementary school, I’m not so sure. I’d love to hear the thoughts of those who teach younger students.
According to the "PowerPoint is Evil" article, and the NPR story, there are many views that surround the use of Microsoft's PowerPoint program in education. Some believe that PowerPoint is a waste of time to teach students to learn because it either has too much information on its slides, or students spend too much time focusing on clip art and fonts.
I believe that PowerPoint can be helpful when used properly. It cannot take the place of a well thought out presentation, but needs to supplement it. It should have only main ideas on each slide and not have too much extra add-ons that may be distracting. This program can be very good to help students who have different learning styles to work on another way of learning. If a student is a visual learner, the presentation can help guide the student through a lesson while helping them to learn how to gather information using their listening skills.
As the teacher, I believe it is important to teach the students an effective way to use PowerPoint. The students will be better off learning to use this program once they have a greater understanding of how to communicate ideas to others. At an earlier age, the students may be more interested in adding pictures, and creating more interactive slides than making sure the presentation is truly expressing what it is supposed to.
I have a love/hate relationship with PowerPoint. Yes – it’s fun to play with and it has a purpose. But I agree with Edward Tufte’s: PowerPoint is evil!
Torture is the only word to describe the feeling in my stomach when plagued by a well-meaning sales person, hawking their wares using PowerPoint’s visual diatribe. I worked for years for sales people who begged us in Marketing to create dynamic presentations for them – as if an animated PowerPoint presentation guaranteed a contract. Then came the project when a team of us in Marketing spent weeks developing a non-linear company presentation. The project won a coveted Gold Quill award from the International Association of Business Communicators but this might as well have been booby prize according to the sales team – they had no interest in using a presentation to facilitate a conversation. Lights out! The sales team continued to bore prospects to tears with over-designed presentations.
So when I entered the world of education, I was initially shocked by the use of PowerPoint with fourth graders. They were being coached to design slides to present research. The slides consisted of one word per bullet – just talking points. And true to its intent, the notes section was used for students to write out their talking points.
I fear for educators that have fallen victim to the seduction of PowerPoint. Even in grad school, I have learned several hard lessons when I depended on the medium to present material. I believe it does have its use – within limits. But I worry about a culture that is afraid to rely on old-fashioned dialogue. Years ago, I read an article entitled “Absolute PowerPoint” by Ian Parker. The theme is at the heart of the PowerPoint debacle – it is “software you impose on other people” (2). We’ve all sat through overly transitioned, word art gone wild slide presentations. Yet I’m just as guilty. As Parker states “to appear at a meeting without PowerPoint would be unwelcome” (2).
Victoria Brown begs the question if it is the user or the program at fault. Perhaps it is both – we live in a world where we expect information to be presented to us – the classic metaphor for this is Times Square in New York City. Can anyone think of another place more stimulating?
PowerPoint may have its place in the classroom, but perhaps we should consider a mantra – “I will not use more than two tricks per slide”. Only then will our audience be more willing to listen to us than blink their eyelashes through a presentation. Software cannot replace strong teaching and facilitation of academic content. As Brown states “the user is more influential in the learning process than the program!” (233).
Ironically, just one day after I read and listened to our MD400 assigned tasks, a colleague of mine sent out an e-mail to the Ridgefield High School mathematics department with this attached link: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124695289. Everyone, please feel free to check it out! It seems as though there has been a lot of recent talk about the disadvantages of a technology that once was widely recognized as a benefit to educators.
To be honest, my first response to both the article, PowerPoint is Evil, and the NPR story was that these analysts are ridiculous! As a high school mathematics teacher, I use PowerPoint almost on a daily basis. However, I am not using PowerPoint because I want to overdo my use of colored graphs, clip arts, or bullet points. I use PowerPoint as a very handy instructional tool. Rather than having my back to my students as I write the daily lesson’s notes on the white board with the hopes that they are following directly along, instead I am able to pre-write my notes and talk through them as I walk around the room. This gives me the opportunity to keep my eye on each of my students – regardless of how far away they are seated from the white board. I feel as though this environment takes the light off of me and puts more of a light on my students. While my students are working through examples, I am able to generate true discussion of topics in each group as I circle around rather than worrying so much about what I need to jot down on the white board next.
Furthermore, after reading Tufte’s comment, “Rather than learning to write a report using sentences, children are being taught how to formulate client pitches and infomercials,” I could not help but argue that too. What about those students who will be making client pitches and infomercials for their career? Those students WILL need to learn how to best power points with bullets to followers. Not everyone will need to write a report after they leave high school. Education should target all types of learners and learners heading into all types of fields, not just the one traditional type. I would like to quote Kara by saying, “This program can be very good to help students who have different learning styles to work on another way of learning”.
As with everything in this world, PowerPoint can be used as a disadvantage, but one must also shed some light on the rewarding aspects of PowerPoint too. At Ridgefield High School, the business department offers an entire semester long course on the use of PowerPoint, including its advantages and disadvantages, special effects and features, as well as its application. The students love the course and truly benefit a great deal from it.
I enjoyed hearing the alternative perspective (to mine) on the use of PowerPoint in the classroom because it does allow me to reflect on my perspective of it. And by no means does my posting attempt to demean Edward Tufte or any of the other NPR speakers, it just offers another perspective that I hope everyone is open to! I also suggest to those of you who haven’t seen the recent film, Couples Retreat, to check out the first half hour or so to see how PowerPoint is represented there – you see both sides!
There were various good points made about the use and abuse of PowerPoint. Throughout the article "PowerPoint is Evil" the author addressed the fact that no matter how many clipart images and how many graphic movements you add to a presentation, it does not make the presentation good. If the information that you are imbedding in your presentation is not interesting, adding movement and images will not make it more interesting. If you are not presenting interesting materials doing so on a colorful backround will not make your audience more interested. PowerPoint can be very fun for young children to play around with, but it seems as though children grow more interested with the layout of their presentation than the material that they are incorperating in it. It is however a tool that cannot be avoided, and should be taught. I think students at the middle school and high school levels would be more appropriate to teach PowerPoint to, rather than the elementary school students that I work with. I think it is important to teach younger students how to deliver a presentation without the help of visual aids such as PowerPoint, so that students get used to just standing up in front of their peers.
I see both sides of the argument that Tufte puts forward. However, I think that calling Powerpoint evil may be a little much.
I agree that using Powerpoint as a tool in elementary school setting is a little ridiculous. I work with 4th and 5th grade classes in a technology setting, and see that sometimes, the students are more concerned with what clip art they are allowed to use and what color font their slide should have. They are more concerned with the look of the presentation, rather than the content of what they are presenting.
I agree with Kara that, when used correctly, Powerpoint can be a very helpful tool in the fields of education, business and others. However, I do not agree with Powerpoint being used in place of hard work. If a presenter is giving a presentation and decides to use Powerpoint, this should be to only guide the presentation. The whole presentation should not be on the Powerpoint slides, and the presenter should not simply be reading what they have on the slide. Bullet points work, when used as a guideline.
While Powerpoint cannot replace hardwork, when used correctly, I believe it can be a wonderful supplement to a presentation.
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As many have stated already, I also believe that labeling powerpoint as "evil" seems a bit exagerated.
The mere fact that there are over 10,000,000 computers in schools across America reminds us about how prevelent technology is in our classrooms. It is our responsibility as educators to ensure that the technology is used responsibly by our students.
I don't see the harm in using another visual, organizational tool with students, especially with those who are visual learners or tend to be disorganized. Again, as long as emphasis isn't placed on the graphics rather than the content, I see powerpoint as a tool that may be used to create and/or hold the interests of students.
In this day and age, with the amount of visual stimulation that a child receives on a daily basis, I see any such tools that may hold the interests of my students as a blessing.
It is our responsibility to make sure that the children are not getting caught up in special effects, or "reading complex passages and believing that they only need to take three important points from the reading." If we can teach them to use ppt responsibly, as the content free, creative medium that we would like it to be, than I believe it is safe to assume that we will not be causing "80% of our students intellectual harm" as stated in the NPR report. We simply need to teach our students other skills, such as how to give an oral presentation, critical thinking, and how to dissect what is read, in addition to ppt skills.
I work part time at a company that uses PowerPoint for presentations, and I am often assigned the task of updating data for their template butterfly charts, scatterplots and bar charts. Almost every page includes the same six bank names - only the graphics and the data change. I am bored when i update them - I can't imagine sitting through a presentation of that size!
Some PowerPoint is evil. That is indisputable. However, PowerPoint is an educational tool, and like any other technology, it can be used positively or negatively. Educational technology is meant to enhance learning - if a teacher is only going to use PowerPoint to underscore his or her same rote methods of teaching (aka outlining the main points of a lecture into slide form), he or she should not use it at all. I have a class in which the professor does exactly this, and I have had a really hard time learning everything I have been meant to learn - I just can't pay attention to a slide with a couple of bullet points on it for that long.
That said, if a teacher wishes to truly enhance the learning experience, PowerPoint can be a really valuable tool. A couple of weeks ago I was assigned to create a lesson plan for another school library class I am taking. I decided to create a PowerPoint to supplement my lesson plan, and I had so much fun with it. Instead of making a boring, slide-by-slide presentation that was moved forward only by the sound of a teacher's voice, I created a PowerPoint that was driven by student discussion. It was based on a book I loved as a child, Ayu and the Perfect Moon, which is about a young girl in Bali who dances a special dance called the Legon. My first slide had the class reading the book together. Subsequent slides asked questions, such as, "What do we know about the main character, Ayu? How do we know it?" The next slides with information about the Legong dance and about Bali would only be navigated to after students had talked about what they read. Then they got to see videos of the actual dance and look at an interactive map that showed them where Bali is. Instead of making this lesson PowerPoint-driven, I tried to make it student-driven and student-centered, as the PowerPoint would flow with class discussion and not just the teacher's voice.
The NPR clip we listened to compared students to little businessman who would use PowerPoint to impress classmates with their graphics and their points. In my mind, this would only happen if PowerPoint was used counterproductively. Technology is meant to enhance learning and bolster creativity - if used creatively, PowerPoint can be a fun and different way for students to learn. I also disagreed with one of the women who spoke in the NPR clip who said that it is not always helpful for students to dissect complex readings and identify three main points. Especially for complex readings, it is invaluable for students to break the material they are reading into smaller pieces and think about what is being said. PowerPoint at its worst can be evil, but hopefully most students and teachers would not be so mundane as to use it only to create bulleted lists of content or boring graphics comparing numbers.
I agree with most who have posted that the word "evil" is over the top to describe PowerPoint. However, I can certainly see how it can be misused in such a way that would lend to Tufte's adamant disapproval, and I see much of that misuse at the high school level.
I certainly welcome anyone to correct me on this, but I've always understood elementary level classes to focus on sequencing, organization, visualization, and recall; all concepts that Tufte pointed out that PowerPoint focuses on. Especially with struggling students at an elementary level, I can see PowerPoint being very helpful to be sure information is understood and thought about meaningfully. It is at a high school level where it becomes very difficult to engage a powerpoint with the thinking processes expected in high grades.
Again, my thoughts are skewed by the expectations of a Language Arts teacher, but as it's my subject area, it's what I look at for the context of this information. Perhaps in a Science, History, or Math class, where the information is much more linear, PowerPoint could remain to be helpful. In an English class, on the other hand, Tufte's points about the lack of written thought, and the emphasis on lists of facts and information, would certainly limit the thought process and level of work expected in a high school english class.
PowerPoints are taught to be sparse on words, and focus on engagement with images and techniques that often have little relevance or added insight to the topic being presented. In an english class, there is just not enough time to be wasting time on such a low level activity. Tufte's point about bringing in wrong or irrelevant information to attract your audience is another pit fall that I've seen in my own classroom. Instead of making sure that what students are presenting is insightful, accurate, and analytical, they focus on whether they chose the right color or graphic to sell their speech. As much as student engagement is important, engaging students in worthless activities is surely not going to create a very worthwhile or effective learning environment.
The article, "Power Point is Evil," made some good points about the uses, or overuses, of power point. It is true that in a very long multi - slide presentation, there may only be something like 40 words to read. Power point can sometimes make the information in presentations too brief while make the presentation long and boring to the audience. I have used power point many times before, and it is easy to simply click "new slide," add more information, keep on adding slides, and before you know it, you have a very long presentation. Furthermore, adding clip art will not make the presentation more interesting although it may look nice. If the content is long and boring, clip art will not make it more entertaining or engaging.
In terms of educational implications for the use of power point in the elementary classroom, I thought the author made a very good point. If a student makes a power point presentation on a topic, they are merely writing short, bulleted notes on their topic. I am a big fan of the use of technology in the classroom, but in a case like this, it might be better to have them write an expository paper on their topic rather than a short series of notes, with more time spent on graphics than on content. I think that the topic or content area students will create a power point about should be considered carefully before assigning it.
Having said that however, I have found some good uses for power point in my classroom. My grade level team and I use power point for our back to school night presentation to our students' parents. We have found that in our limited time, it is a good way to inform parents of our third grade curriculum, procedures, field trips and other grade level specific information. They get a print out of the presentation, and can always ask us questions if they have any. I have also found that power point can be a motivating tool to teach my class. I create Science Jeopardy using power point for each of our science units throughout the year to help my students review what they have learned and study for an upcoming test. I have also used power point to introduce new materials and concepts. I think that when used in a good motivational way, a power point can be a good tool in the elementary classroom.
Student Centered or Teacher centered - I always question these 2 terms and are they mutually exclusive. I think using teacher centered tools in a classroom are an excellent way to show the student how the teaching profession has changed and what tools a teacher can use in the classroom "as a professional teacher". I do find students respond to the technologies used by teachers in the classroom in a positive way. Having a teacher who is technologically savvy can only be a good thing in the students eyes.
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