- Key-word/Image-based (presenter-focused)
- Verbal explanation obligatory (partial only)
- Effect:
attention-divided (reduced conceptional attainment)
Or now the same meaning but instead put into (non-PP) sentences:
A basic problem with PowerPoint is that (as its name suggests) users of
it make points. These points must be shortened text, sometimes
with seemingly eye-catching graphics or images.
The templates for PowerPoint do not allow for fully explaining a point with words: that must be done with the spoken word during the presentation, which means that (even in the unlikely event that it is done clearly) understanding will be lost or very limited because the PP visual slide is what most people will focus on not the oral description of it.
Because of these kinds of downsides, the possible death of PowerPoint
presentations was made by Anna Patty, Education Editor of one Australian
newspaper article, but this prediction seems to have been made in
haste.
She refers to research findings
from the University of New South Wales' Professor John
Sweller stating that "the human brain processes and retains more information if
it is digested in either its verbal or written form, but not both at the same
time."
He found that "The use of the PowerPoint presentation has been a disaster. It should be ditched."
My own conclusions are the same.
I do not want play any part in creating
the next generation of PP users. Instead of being just one more of the ten
teachers who will be subjecting their students to the friendly fire of bullet
points and grammarless sludge-phrases, I will be giving them a one page
photocopied hand-out.
This sheet will have full sentences. The sentences will be short but they will have unfashionable conjunctions in them, including written words that help to make the ideas clear.
Words like: "because.'
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