In 1987 the Silicon Valley Company released version 1.0 of the now widely used program best known as PowerPoint for Macintosh computers. Three years later, the software was made available to Windows users. Since then, the face of education along with a variety of other disciplines has suffered through a significant amount of alterations as a result of new technologies.
Educational institutions ac-ross the globe encourage the use of PowerPoint as an effective tool to better communicate information to the students of today. Our generation is unique in experiencing the technology of tomorrow today. We have been exposed to an innumerable amount of both major and minor technological advances in our short life span.
Every day, at least 30 million PowerPoint presentations are given. Therefore, it is obvious programs such as PowerPoint are becoming a larger part of how we learn in the classroom. The overuse of similar programs has been shown to have a detrimental effect on how we learn to comprehend information. Edward R. Tufte, professor emeritus at Yale University, stresses that PowerPoint is designed to be speaker-oriented. This means that the layout of a typical PowerPoint is convenient for the speaker who uses the program as a way to stay focused and organized with the topic at hand.
Unfortunately, not enough room is provided in order to give the audience an in-depth look at the information provided. An audience that is often exposed to PowerPoint is exposed to information only defined by a bullet point and a word or a short phrase.
Tufte asserts that individuals begin to comprehend information in the way a PowerPoint is organized, in small and rapid fragments. “The software makes us think and speak in isolated blocks, instead of in coherent context, totalities, narratives, or linear reasoning,” argues Tufte.
Likewise, the Harvard Business Review reported that PowerPoint’s bullet point approach leads to superficial and simplified ways of thinking. We are beginning to move to a level of comprehension fueled by our overuse of technology. Therefore, it is evident that our use of such a poorly designed program is beginning to make us think like a poorly designed program.
PowerPoint has also changed the way professors are able to communicate with their students. My personal experience with PowerPoint has led me to believe that its overuse ruins not only the content presented, but also the spirit of the professor who chooses to use it.
Last semester, I had a course in which the professor exhibited a high level of enthusiasm in each of her lectures. She was vibrant and spirited until the dreaded slideshow popped up in the middle of the semester. I soon began to loose interest because it seemed as if all her excitement was absorbed into a few images and bullet points. I expressed my concerns at the end of the semester because of the fact that a wonderful lecturer became dull as a result of PowerPoint.
Additionally, I began to notice that I was no longer absorbing the information as easily. PowerPoint allows a student to be lazy because of its accessibility. Also, the content is not presented in a way that would be considered mildly interesting. Professors who have the ability to excite their students about what they are teaching do not need PowerPoint. Instead, such a program has a harmful effect on the level of communication that exists between the student and the professor.
The overuse of programs such as PowerPoint is, I feel, comparable to a man or woman who has a serious addiction to, for example, plastic surgery. The addiction begins as a simple aid in improving an individual’s aging appearance. Soon, the visits and the procedures become a routine in the life of an addict. Dozens of procedures later, the individual is destroyed both mentally and physically.
PowerPoint is similar because it is clear that educational institutions have formed a strong dependence on the program because of its high level of convenience. PowerPoint should not be banned. Instead, its constant use should be re-evaluated considering the detrimental effects of having the program as an essential teaching tool. There is certainly nothing wrong with using PowerPoint here and there. The program may be more useful in some classes than others.
Students and professors need to stand back from the bright screen in order to rediscover classical learning styles, which seem to have a number of positive effects. Our use of PowerPoint needs to be further questioned.
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