Article: “We have met the enemy and he is powerpoint” by Elizabeth Bumiller.
WASHINGTON — Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the leader of American and NATO forces in Afghanistan, was shown a PowerPoint slide in Kabul last summer that was meant to portray the complexity of American military strategy, but looked more like a bowl of spaghetti. “When we understand that slide, we’ll have won the war,” General McChrystal dryly remarked, one of his advisers recalled, as the room erupted in laughter. [Click on link above to read the whole article.]
I am no fan of PowerPoint, but this article also shows how ignorant people are of technology:
“PowerPoint makes us stupid”
Really? It reaches into our heads and removes information? Bill Gates is pretty powerful.. but that is a stretch.
“Commanders say that behind all the PowerPoint jokes are serious concerns that the program stifles discussion, critical thinking and thoughtful decision-making.”
Really? It jumps out and tells people to stop discussing, thinking, and making decisions?
The real problem is people don’t know how to use the tool – the tool itself is neutral. The problem is that people don’t know anything about quality instructional design, but want an easy target so they go for the tool and not the teacher. PowerPoint doesn’t make us stupid – bad pedagogy does. PowerPoint does not stifle discussion, critical thinking and thoughtful decision-making – bad teachers and presenters do.
Of course, this reminds me of recently when Harriet and I were presenting at TxDLA on the future of the LMS. One evaluation told us that we need to quit having so many discussions and just give them a list of practical ways to use our ideas.
A practical way to use ideas about the future… all in a bullet list. Sigh…
I don’t disagree Matt, but I also see the other side. I think powerpoint has become too popular, too ubiquitous, too canonical… when that happens, people use it without thinking about how to use it, or why they are using it. They just use it because everyone else uses it and it’s just the thing that is done, and everyone does it. That’s poison. I have to tell you… virtually all of the powerpoint presentations I’ve seen over the years are just lousy! (And I’ve done several crummy ones myself, I’ll cop to it!!!)
By the way, my students love power point as a foundation for short video lectures. They are completely opposed to talking heads.