Digital Literacies

I do have sympathy for the views shown in this kind of article: The Ten Things I hate about PowerPoint. The Ten then things formula is pretty common across blogs. Like this. Or this. Also common are the critiques of teachers/presenters (etc) who are just trying to get through the working day. (I have much less sympathy with this.)

I do agree though that PowerPoint is overused and I think it has started to influence not just how we present things to people in terms of structure – but also how we conceptualise our ideas. It affects and structures our relationship with audiences. The bullet point was something I very rarely used to use. Yet these days I am forever listing things off to classes of students or at conferences. I think in lists. I think PowerPoint also keeps your audience at a distance. Keeps them as an audience. While you are messing about with clicking and laying with your fancy transitions and wotnot, you are not really talking to the people properly. If you depend on the technology to wow the folks, the chances are they will not be wowed. Not anymore. We are getting used to the flashy gizmos and sound files. It has got to the point that we filter a lot of these things out if it is not relevant; if it s overdone; if it is not accompanied with interesting ideas. Audiences are more demanding these days – and don’t really wan to be an audience. They would prefer to participate! (As Guy and I mention in our book – a lot of uses of technology in Education are about providing polished performances of old practices. Nowt wrong with being polished, mind you.)

Totally agree that you can come up with snazzy stuff and ways of keeping things interesting. But I think we need to start thinking about the possibility of presenting without PowerPoint from time to time. See what happens when you do stuff differently – although please – don’t let this be a move back to reading a lecture from a little notebook.

Anyhow, I prefer KeyNote. Check out the animations!!