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The Current Controversy Over PowerPoint

Cliff Solomon

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Presentation Outline

Brief Description of PowerPoint Recent Criticisms Student Comments Your Experiences Recent Responses For More Information

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Brief Description of PowerPoint

Predecessors include overhead presentations and working with Genigraphics

1987: PowerPoint 1

• Originally names “Presenter” and designed by Forethought of Sunnyvale, CA

• Ran on a Macintosh and was only in black and white 1988: Microsoft buys Forethought 1990: Windows version released.

• Competitors included Harvard Graphics and Lotus Freelance.

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Original Problems

Buggy Poor support of fonts Changes to outline did not affect slides and

vice versa.

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Current Status

Now the dominant presentation tool. • “With more than 300 million users worldwide, according

to a Microsoft spokesperson, with a share of the presentation software market that said to top 95% and with an increasing number of grade school students indoctrinated every day into the PowerPoint way - chopping up complex ideas and information into bite-sized nuggets of a few words, and then further pureeing those nuggets into bullet items of even fewer words - PowerPoint seems poised for world domination.”

Why is it so popular?

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Recent Criticism New Yorker, “Absolute PowerPoint”

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New Yorker Comments

Critical of auto-content wizard Misuse of bulleted lists “Because PowerPoint can be an impressive

antidote to fear—converting public-speaking dread into movie making pleasure—there seems to be not great impulse to fight this influence, as you might fight the unrelenting animated paperclip in Microsoft Word”

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Recent Criticism—Edward Tufte

Professor at Yale University Renowned expert on how to present

information in an effective manner

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Napoleon’s March-C. J. Minard

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Recent Criticism—Edward Tufte

2003—The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint

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“PowerPoint chart junk: smarmy, chaotic, incoherent”

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Tufte Suggests

Stay away from Content Wizards and Slide Templates.

Use printed materials.

• PowerPoint does not provide the information density necessary for many talks.

• This is especially true when using bullets.

• Stay away from PowerPoint Chart. Use as an adjunct to the presentation and not the

presentation itself. Do not use builds!

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Other Critical Articles

Sept. 2003 Wired Magazine “PowerPoint Is Evil”—Edward Tufte

Jan. 2003 SiliconValley.com “Is PowerPoint the Devil?”--Julia Keller

Aug. 2003 “PowerPoint shot with its own bullets”—Peter Norvig

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Students Comments

PowerPoint Enhances Student Learning

• When the lecture notes are available in a timely manner

• When slides are not overcrowded

• Because slides are sometimes more legible than handwritten overheads

• Because they help identify the lecture’s main points

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Students Comments

PowerPoint Detracts from Student Learning

• When notes are not available in time to print before class

• When the slides are overcrowded and confusing

• When professors read directly from the slides

• When professors do not take the time to draw diagrams and explain the processes involved.

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Recent Responses

March 2004 “Does PowerPoint make you Stupid?”—Tad Simons

• Good summary of Tufte’s comments and rebuttal

• Describes disconnect between what Tufte has previously and his current “tirade”

• Builds and layering can be educational useful.

• Tufte misses the fact that PowerPoint presentations can be emotionally effective.

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Recent Responses The Cognitive Load of PowerPoint: an Interview

with Richard E. Mayer

• Too often, speakers are interested in presenting information only and are not interested in the cognitive processing

• Important to separate media and methods.

• Media refer to the delivery systems for communication.

• Methods refers to the instructional design.

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Mayer Dual-channels: people have separate information

channels for visual material and verbal material. Limited capacity: people can pay attention to

only a few pieces of information in each channel at a time.

Active Processing: people understand the presented material when they pay attention to the relevant material, organize it into a coherent mental structure and integrate it with their prior knowledge.

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Mayer’s Suggestions Make use of dual-channel structure of learning

• A graph should have labels Minimize the chance of overloading the cognitive system

• Eliminate extraneous material, such as 3-dimensionality and cute but irrelevant clip art.

Design the presentation to promote active learning by guiding the processes of selecting, organizing and integrating information.

• Use arrows, outlines, and concrete examples such as video.

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My Thoughts

Tufte is dealing hyperbole. Tufte has not taken the time to properly

evaluate PowerPoint as an educational tool. He is correct when it comes to the low

“information density” provided by PowerPoint.

He is also correct about the linear nature of powerpoint.

Builds can be effective.

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For More Information The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint by Edward Tufte

Available for sale through Tufte’s web sitehttp://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/

Absolute PowerPoint by Ian Parker, The New Yorker, May 28, 2001Available through University Libraries Electronic Journals

The Cognitive Load of PowerPoint: Q& A With Richard E. Mayer by Cliff Atkinsonhttp://www.marketingprofs.com/4/atkinson10.asp (free membership required)

Does PowerPoint Make You Stupid? By Tad Simonshttp://www.presentations.com/presentations/delivery/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000482464

PowerPoint Is Evil by Edward Tuftehttp://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.09/pp2.html

Nine Ways to Reduce Cognitive Load in Multimedia Learning by Richard Mayer & Roxana Moreno. Educational Psychologist, 18 (1), 43-52Available through University Libraries Electronic Journals

Edward Tufte’s “The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint” presented in the form of a PowerPoint presentation. By Aaron Swartz.http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/000931

The Gettysburg Address as PowerPointhttp://www.norvig.com/Gettysburg/