Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Please save me from another boring Powerpoint Presentation!

I tweet a lot about bad Powerpoint presentations. Recently I sent the following

tweet:

Why do people teach the mechanics of ppt but neglect teaching how to use it 2 make a great presentation?

Responses received:

@philhart: Because those teaches would need to raise their game. :(

@thecleversheep: 'Cus people still think it's about the tool rather than the message.

@MilaSaintAnne: Perhaps.. it's more easy to learn technics than think about the subject you have to talk...

@dmchugh675
: Teaching the mechanics of ppt is easier than developing effective communication skills. Skill development takes effort.

The common thread is that it is much easier to teach the mechanics than to teach communication skills. Further, I just don’t think people know what a great presentation looks like and/or they just don’t care.

It is not the tool itself that concerns me; it is the misuse. Here are a few links to help with (Powerpoint) presentations:

Seth Godin: Really Bad Powerpoint (And how to avoid it)

Why Board Members Should Ban Bullets

Dodging Bullets in Presentations

STEAL THIS PRESENTATION!

6 comments:

  1. True. It does take practice and experience to recognise the good from the bad in the presentations you make with Powerpoint. It's a shame more people don't figure that out.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I went on a rant about bad PPT yesterday too. Something needs to change. Lots of thoughts on the subject, no time to flush them out right now. Just wanted to say I feel your pain and you have a colleague in the crusade to kill the powerpoint.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Sat through one today in a class about classroom dynamics, oh the irony.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I'm actually a huge fan of PowerPoint, but not traditional presentation formats. For me, Pecha Kucha presentations force students to choose the most relevant information to share, present visually, and use oral communication skills. I also love using PPT animation to represent conceptual understandings. One of the neatest PPT samples I've seen is the process of photosynthesis done through PPT animation. Combine that with the easy voice narration capabilities plus PPT 2010's save as video feature and new web apps and it's still a very relevant and meaningful tool for learning. In this day and age where web 2.0 is where everyone wants to be, PPT still has a lot of benefits and capabilities. PowerPoint does not equal text-heavy information dumps. Don't give up on PPT people!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Indeed Danny, I am not against it either, just its misuse. Any tool can be misused, not only ppt. Thanks for your comment.

    ReplyDelete