PowerPoint?? The vain of all existence or a tool which if used correctly brings a visual aid to the world of business communications. I’m a firm believer in not choosing binary opposition in sides, black or white, good or evil, Sith or Jedi. I believe there is a lot of grey matter in the world and in this area. The PowerPoint itself is not what is the problem but just like the force if it is used incorrectly it could be mayhem to the effected audience. Edward Tufte, our very own Darth Vader, sees PowerPoint as only evil. He sees it as something that will dumb down our youth and communications. I have seen PowerPoint done this way. There was a presentation in my past in which I could not understand a wick of what was going on do to the crazy animation, very loud background and unusable text. This can also be said for putting too much information on a PowerPoint. In one of my courses the teacher copied and pasted from an online resource her entire PowerPoint. It was too overwhelming and I lost focus rather quickly. But if we see the world like our own PowerPoint Yoda, David Byrne, if used in the right way PowerPoint can bring out the best in presentations and allow a great visual medium for learners who are visually inclined such as myself. I had a teacher onetime who always took time in their presentations made them visually interesting but used them as an outline not a script for their class. In this way it helped me stay focuses and elaborated on their subject matter in a way in which I could understand better. In the end it is not the tool that is good or bad it’s the user. A light saber can kill just as easily as it can be used to protect. So the next time you sit down to create a presentation just remember… Let the force be with you!
Image used with a creative commons liscense http://akae.blogspot.com/2008_07_01_archive.html
Clever analogy!
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