[KLUG Advocacy] Re: Power Point makes you dumb [??]

[Richard Harding]

Personally, I don't think PPT is a tool for after presentation use. I 
teach people that they are to use PPT as a speaking tool. It should 
convey key points and graphical information like a projector or 
slideshow would be used for. It is not meant to be taken away from the 
content of the speaker and used as its own medium of information.

Really if you want to leave something for the audience to sit down and 
go over without the speach you really need to be writing some sort of 
paper, not a bunch of slides.

I just think the tool is misused.

My .02

Rick

Adam Williams wrote:

>>Interesting idea:
>>"Power Point make you dumb"
>>http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/14/magazine/14POWER.html
>>Not so much critical of Power Point as such, more a comment
>>on the shortcomings of the meduim.
> 
> 
> Reading a presentation is a great deal like reading a book review - you
> often learn more about the creator/reviewer than you do about the actual
> topic/text.
> 
> If the creator is confused/biased/etc... the result mirrors this - I
> think in the case of something like a PPT it is often simply much more
> obvious than in a more formal document like a white paper.
> 
> The article is interesting but overlooks cases where -reduced- data
> density is a good thing.  "Power Point" (can we say "Open Impress") is a
> very good teaching tool - since you have no choice but to break things
> down into simple elements.  But it is a lousy way of communicating
> real-word data and all its subtlies.
> 
> Take the LDAP presentation for example.  It lays out the rudiments of a
> concept like "objectclass" in a way that (hopefully) someone with no
> concept of "objectclass" can wrap their head around pretty quickly. 
> Then it moves into examples of real objectclasses.  Compare this to
> reading the *chapters* on "objectclass" in McGraw Hill's "Designing and
> implementing directory enabled networks".    But one is naturally meant
> to lead into the other.  Reading Mcgraw's D&IDEN is still essential, but
> MUCH easier when you already have a basic idea of "objectclass".  The
> text will explain the myriad interrelationships of schema elements
> better than a slide show, but can also be really confusing as it uses
> those interrelationships, in part, to define what a schema element is
> (which is more "truthful" but also more intimidating).
>