Death by Power Point

The pointlessness of PowerPoint™ , death by PowerPoint™ or any similar pithy remark are very common in our tech saturated world. Something which was so exciting when first introduced has become a negative in many settings. This is one area where my military experience strangely comes into play. For a while everything in the military was a PowerPoint™ presentation. Every place someone went the first thing was a safety PowerPoint™ then there would be an Equal Opportunity PowerPoint™. Eventually, a PowerPoint™ presentation was an unspoken way of saying we have to do this but I don't really have anything invested in it and you don't need to either. PowerPoint™ also enabled anyone to appear to be an expert at a moment's notice. If you had a good product and could fake it, you could present on anything. It was far easier to go over some slides then stand and talk next to them than to create a new presentation or genuinely know the material. So PowerPoint™ made everyone a "expert".

This is one of the serious considerations to discuss when using technology. Whether it is PowerPoint™ or some other form of multimedia, the presenter must know more than the presentation. The presentation is not going to be able to interact with the students or explain concepts in additional ways.

As Jamie McKenzie says, "The goal is the creation of a strong and charismatic relationship with the audience. Students must master strategies to develop and maintain contact, engagement, credibility and trust." Jamie also points out several ways to make multimedia more interesting. But this is the main point, the presenter must be the expert both in material and in communication. I think the point made about 80% research and 20% presentation is very good and illustrates this point well. In order to make multimedia and PowerPoint™ useful and relevant, there are certain steps to be taken in the creation of the product. However, educators must remain the experts who can understand students' questions to clarify and communicate the material.