Death by Powerpoint
This week’s readings were quite enjoyable, especially the Gettysburg Address Powerpoint parody. While I am very much in favor of using visual aids and digital assistance to add some attention-getters to presentations, they can be a stong cue on which the audience can hang the memory of what was said. Relying on any form of digital assistance for the bulk of the presentation, though, can become a distraction from the actual content of the presentation. The use of Powerpoint particularly has always struck me as at best an annoyance and at worst a stumbling block to understanding. Partly because way too many presenters just read the bullet points and add nothing useful. Mainly, though, the listeners then pitch their notetaking and attention to what is on the slides and not on what the presenter is saying, which is especially a problem in course lectures. Most of the context, and sometimes the really important data then gets lost to the listeners.
Furthermore, for the archivist and the historian, Powerpoint creates another problem. At times, the only historical record for a critical meeting for some purpose may be the Powerpoint presentation. The document itself is often of little use in reconstructing the meeting, even to the extent of knowing what the speaker actually said, and provides no means of determining the context for the limited amount of information present. Few of what are often referred to as “the journalist’s questions,” especially those of how and why, can be answered by the Powerpoint document. This problem is no exaggeration, as I have dealt with it in practice in the process of creating a finding aid for a document collection. In fact, one which involved the slide example from page 27 of the Tufte article.
February 25th, 2006 at 4:20 pm
Liz,
I agree completely. Powerpoint presentations can be similar to lecture notes in documenting a pheomenal lecture. You hear all the time about how “so-and-so” was a great lecturer, how his/her ideas and thoughts were something to behold..but alas, there are no notes or information available on these ideas, and this brilliant person never got around to publishing a book or article!
Right. an exageratted hypothetical, but I see what you’re saying…and in a world where digital presentation tools are what’s being used (despite the condemnation) they should be preserved. Also, in the digital age it seems that powerpoint presentations are another way in which ideas are spread electronically.
February 26th, 2006 at 4:15 pm
I like your point about PowerPoint making it difficult to piece together a historical record unlike a detailed report or minutes from a meeting. Although my experiences with PowerPoint are grounded in the business world, I remember glancing back at presentations and not remembering how the speaker connected certain ideas because the slides were so top line.