Wired 11.09: PowerPoint Is Evil - 3 views
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Visual reasoning usually works more effectively when relevant information is shown side by side.
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nsamuelian on 22 Oct 11This made me think about the Chart Wars clip we watched. In that clip, we concluded that visuals are more effective to get your point across rather than words, but this article is saying that no matter how creative and appealing your visuals are, the audience will be bored if you haven't introduced an interesting topic for them. I think they both make sense, but personally I'm not too sure which one i agree with more.
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Felecia Russell on 23 Oct 11Well, yes because there is a connection. A graph with words makes more sense together than separate. Words by itself is considered boring. Picture by themselves are lacking content. So, images and words together would be better for listeners. This article does suggest that the importance of words will not be good enough without visuals, and vice versa, but I disagree. I think people gravitate more towards visuals by themselves. However, I do think that for information to make sense, visual reasoning is more effective when relevant information is presented as well.
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Tavish Dunn on 24 Oct 11The Chart Wars clip does have some connection to this. Images can carry a powerful message, but without relevant words to explain the image, people can easily interpret the visual incorrectly. Words give context to an image, although the image itself is primarily what causes an emotional response. Relevant information can also give the sense that the issue expands beyond the single instance shown in one image. I think that visuals cause people to think about an issue while the relevant information gives a clearer understanding and focus.
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Ryan Brown on 24 Oct 11In today's society the ability to use images affects people every moment. That ad, the commerical on tv, the poster on the wall etc. How visually striking are those images for the unadopted pets with the sarah mclaughlin song or the starving children in africa. There are reasons they show you photos to things like that, to make an impact and emotional connection. Everyone has a weakness for imagery and it truly just depends on the depictions being made.
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Valencia Hamilto on 24 Oct 11I believe that powerpoint presentations are effective when visuals are present because it gives the audience a better undersanding of the information being presented.However some powerpoints can be boring like Tufte said in the article "Thus PowerPoint presentations too often resemble a school play -very loud, very slow, and very simple." For powerpoints it depends on the presenter because if the presenter is not engaging and very vague the presentationn will indeed feel like a school play and the audience wont truly benefit from it.
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Kaitlyn Guilbeaux on 24 Oct 11I believe that PowerPoint presentations are for the most part effective and good. There are many instances when PowerPoints seem ineffective, and that is because the presenter utilizing the slideshow doesn't know how to create an effective presentation. That is why small children are being taught how to use the programs in elementary schools. If we all know how to make a good slideshow, they will always be effective learning tools. PowerPoints are beneficial, when they are done well, because many people thrive when they can look at a visual that represents what they are learning about. From this article, I have gotten a vibe that the author believes that slideshow presentations are made to stand alone. That is something I almost never see. A presenter uses a slideshow as an aid to accompany something that they are speaking about. If a presenter did not say anything and just made his/her audience look at slide after slide, of course it would be boring and ineffective! That is not how slideshows are meant to be used.
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Matt Nolan on 24 Oct 11I feel like a PowerPoint presentation is a thing of the past, there are so many new ways to get information across to people. When someone gives a presentation with just a bunch of info some people will understand it ,but others will not feel engaged. Instead of someone just trying to get a bunch of information across to people with 40 slides of info in a PowerPoint they are not going to feel engaged, they are not going to want to listen and they will not think any of the information is important to their lives. There are so many new ways data is presented and when people are learning they need to feel engaged to the material they are being presented.
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John Buchanan on 26 Oct 11I feel like I should bring up an idea that I have seen used before called a Pecha Kucha. Its a twenty-slide PowerPoint presentation that is just made up of pictures, with NO text. Each slide is only allowed to be up on the screen for twenty seconds before the next one comes up. This sort of presentation is conducive to preventing "information overload" and makes it easier for the audience to follow along.
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especially in Dr. Marichal's class. the difference is that most poeple dont know how to use them. most people even teachers put too much infor on the powerpoint for a student to take note on or process. there is a technique to making a useful and productive powerpoint most dont know about
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I have to agree with Magen. In class we use the powerpoints but minimally. We know that taking notes on the slides presented would be less than useless. Its sad that the majority of Profs use the Powerpoint to teach everything. Every single subject that I have taken in college either at CLU, UCR or at Berkley (just the schools that I've either sat in class or taken classes) have all used Powerpoints and each one, I've fallen asleep at least once because its so boring. I think thats what Tufte is getting at. Its a boring way to teach therefore ineffective.
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Not sure that I can agree with this. although powerpoint doesn't help all the time it isn't a clear line of stupidity and can still help relay statistical information
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A table or graph can be very useful to have up as a point of reference and so people can see the data for themselves and if there are multiple tables or graphs it would be useful to use a powerpoint. I don't think powerpoint is what is stupid, it's the way people use it. Used properly it can be a useful tool.
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At a minimum, a presentation format should do no harm. Yet the PowerPoint style routinely disrupts, dominates, and trivializes content.
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I feel as if whether we are making a power point or taking notes off one, more often than not a power point is overwhelming and chalk full of information for us to read and write down instead of listening to what is really being said. That isn't to say that I believe power points are bad and stupid, I simply mean to suggest that individuals do not use the power point in the most effective manner which I think is more accurate than just dismissing the program and its value all together.
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Particularly disturbing is the adoption of the PowerPoint cognitive style in our schools. Rather than learning to write a report using sentences, children are being taught how to formulate client pitches and infomercials. Elementary school PowerPoint exercises (as seen in teacher guides and in student work posted on the Internet) typically consist of 10 to 20 words and a piece of clip art on each slide in a presentation of three to six slides -a total of perhaps 80 words (15 seconds of silent reading) for a week of work. Students would be better off if the schools simply closed down on those days and everyone went to the Exploratorium or wrote an illustrated essay explaining something.
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I agree with the last couple sentences of this paragraph in specific. I honestly think that the amount of information we retain from a powerpoint presentation is little to none. We seriously would be better off going to an educational place or such- we would be learning more in comparison.
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I fondly remember the days that we actually left the school building to go to places like museums to learn. What ever happened to those days? I feel that these are very important resources that a school can use but choose not to. The best we could get nowadays is to read a power-point about what we would see at the museum.
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I'm not fond of the author's false dichotomy that we are teaching power-point message based language in place of decent literary writing. Also, I hold the author's assertions that teaching children the boring methods of working in the business world as "pointless" as being misguided. True, school is much more than preparing children for the workplace - but it is a definitive pillar of education to prepare them for the tasks they will encounter outside of school in order to allow for a functioning society (a working polis).
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Mike is exactly right. School is a lot more than just teaching kids reading, writing and arithmetic. They will learn the foundations of society by working hard.
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Audience boredom is usually a content failure, not a decoration failure.
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I think that no matter what the topic, if the presenter is able to present the information in a way that makes it interesting to the audience there is no problem. But the presenter must use his style of presentation to present the information instead of just relying on the powerpoint to do do the presentation for him/her.
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The practical conclusions are clear. PowerPoint is a competent slide manager and projector. But rather than supplementing a presentation, it has become a substitute for it.
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More and more we see that some, if not most, classes make it a point to incorporate PowerPoint presentation into the requirements. As much as these presentations are painted in a position light (and this is not to say I am against PowerPoint) they lack the proper execution. When professors add all the information they are going to use in lecture, you see a good amount of students feel that there time is being wasted as all the information needed and being used in lecture is on this presentation, one that they can easily print. We become disengaged when all the information is given to us, yet we have to sit there and pretend we are interested. Can PowerPoints be useful, yes of course they can. But for the most part, they tend to contain too much information, and we tend to get lost in the sea of data.
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The author again assumes that everyone misuses power-point which is far from the case.
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Presentations largely stand or fall on the quality, relevance, and integrity of the content.
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Power points largely rely on these factors as well. To any successful presentation there is quality, relevance, and integrity; however, power point allows for creativity and a use of marketing skills to HELP capture the attention of the audience. As seen in the pictures above, Tufte shows a power point and attempts to use it as a "chaotic and incoherent" mess. I find it very interesting that Tufte actually uses a horrible power point and expects the readers of his article to believe it signifies ALL power points. I do agree with him on one issue though, power points being used for young children in grade school is a bit early because young children need to begin with the basic understanding of how to comprehend and truly absorb what they read rather than relying on pictures to create their own narrative.
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Power point presentations may cause a distraction from the actual content of a presentation, with all the obnoxious graphic and fonts that take over the screen. But students should be taught how to incorporate power point into their presentations because with today's technological advances, power points are very commonly required. The important thing is to continue teaching the importance of public speaking and essay writing, but also ensuring their knowledge of power point as an additional tool. Power points can also draw the audience in by using few words, making sure not to overwhelm but simply introduce the important information. Giving the audience something to look at other than the presenter also gives your eyes options, keeping you more focused. However, when teachers use power points for their class lectures and fill them with notes that we are expected to know, students spend too much time trying to copy the notes rather than focus on the actual thoughts and words of the professor. I think the more simple the better.
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Overall I agree that powerpoints are poorly implemented, yet I think they can be used properly to improve a presentation. I think the major problems with usage today is. -Too much content/Blocks of text -Distraction (especially in classes where everyone is so busy copying the slides down they mis important information) -Presenter relies on the information to remember what the presentation is on (basically being unprepared) -Related to last one losing track of the topic and jumping around to different slides to figure out what you wanted to talk about
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Slideware may help speakers outline their talks, but convenience for the speaker can be punishing to both content and audience.
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This statement is very ture because i believe that powerpoints, while sometimes necessary, are really overused. They should be used for supplementary ideas rather than the centerpiece for the speaker's whole presentation, as that is detrimental to everyone.
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Powerpoints are definately too overused in todays society. They should be used as guides to help learning not to convey a specific message to an audience.
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betraying an attitude of commercialism that turns everything into a sales pitch.
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I feel that while using imagery and data might in away betray the content of the talk - I believe it is the way in which the presentation is done that truly decides this. One could use the power point simply as a reference to statements made by the speaker, or an outline as the author mentioned. I feel that saying all "slideware" somehow is a problem is kind of hyperbolic.
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The standard PowerPoint presentation elevates format over content, betraying an attitude of commercialism that turns everything into a sales pitch.
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(I just realized that I posted this as private... but I posted it on time I swear!) I definitely agree with this point. I remember when we used to start using Powerpoints in school back in the elementary days, and it was the plain black and white, and it focused more on information than format. However, starting in high school, it started to be more about whether or not the presentation was aesthetically pleasing. I never would have connected it to commercialism, but now that Tufte has brought it up, they do have striking similarities.
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Everything is wrong with these smarmy, incoherent graphs: the encoded legends, the meaningless color, the logo-type branding. They are uncomparative, indifferent to content and evidence, and so data-starved as to be almost pointless.
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Graphics Press A traditional table: rich, informative, clear. BAD Graphics Press PowerPoint chartjunk: smarmy, chaotic, incoherent. Consider an important and intriguing table of survival rates for those with cancer relative to those without cancer for the same time period. Some 196 numbers and 57 words describe surviv
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Imagine a widely used and expensive prescription drug that promised to make us beautiful but didn't. Instead the drug had frequent, serious side effects: It induced stupidity, turned everyone into bores, wasted time, and degraded the quality and credibility of communication.
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Edward Tufte is crazy. Edward states " Imagine a widely used and expensive prescription drug that promised to make us beautiful but didn't. Instead the drug had frequent, serious side effects: It induced stupidity, turned everyone into bores, wasted time, and degraded the quality and credibility of communication". What! First Edward, this is the 21st century which requires humans to use magic that can connect us to the internet. It's called a computer, and by the way, I have one. Within my computer, is a Voodoo based software called PowerPoint, which has significantly degraded my English capabilities and caused the education system to plummet. I will know connect the dots and complete my response. "Crazy" is a strong work, lets say "powerful", so I can keep up with the theme of "PowerPoint". I just called Edward Turte crazy, well is he. Probably not, but I can use derogatory words in hopes of publishing an article in Wired magazine. So Edward, you should restate your phrase, "PowerPoint is Evil". First, PowerPoint and slide presentations gain student attention through means of video, graphics, music and pictures. Second, Professors can share lectures and presentations by sharing flash drive. Third, the benefit of using power-point create creativity within students and is a useful tool in the job market, because the majority of business have used PowerPoint.
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I think PowerPoint slides are really useful for getting some ideas in school to stick into the students' heads. If the teachers always had to draw diagrams in their explanations, that eats up some valuable class time and they might not be as clear as one which is made on a computer (and very few people have handwriting as neat as a computer's). If the presentations are actually good, they don't look like advertisements, but also have important content, whether it is explained verbally or visually.
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I would definitely have to say that power points are very useful, but as a second addition. Power points are a great way to guide a lecture or discussion, however not all the infomation can be provided on it. Lecture is important so that you are forced to listen and think about what is being said rather than just reading it. Power points become problematic because at times they are relied on to heavily and they can cause some one to be distracted from the main point that is trying to be made.
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I believe PowerPoint is a very effective tool in the classroom! As a visual learner I benefit from relating facts and information with a slide or picture. For example in Dr.Marichal's class I may remember the image of the young and old lady picture when I'm having to answer a question about perception. Also, a PowerPoint helps the professor stay on track and gives them a great tool to keep organized and prepared. Some professors do rely on PowerPoints too much, but if you use them as a source of an outline for lecture of discussion it serves as a very useful and technologically savvy resource!
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Personally, I think power points are a great way to help get someone's point across. Some power points are boring because of the way they are formatted or simply because the person presenting is boring. When information that is relevant to the subject is put up on the big screen and it is outlined in bullet points it gets right to the point and tells you this is what you need to know. But I'll admit when someone does have a weird chart like the example that looked just like a Picasso painting it does get confusing and does not have a lot of valuable information.
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I feel visual reasoning really is more effective because I can see what I am being told. The information means alot more wen it is presented to me visually. I enjoy classes where the teachers use powerpoints because I can actually take notes and process what I am being told. In my opinion powerpoints really help present information in a different way and make information more interesting.
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I do think that the author makes a good point. I find that most often when I am confronted with a power point presentation that I am in for a boring presentation. It is hard to say definitively if this is because of the presenter and it would have been a boring presentation anyway or if it is the way it was presented through power point. My first impulse is to surmise that the real problem is with the people giving presentation and not power point itself because I can think of a number of classes specifically *cough*Dr Marichell*cough* that I find engaging, helpful, and entertaining. Maybe this is related to what the author is getting at. Perhaps power point is becoming a crutch and helping people learn a short cut method to an "assignment completing" presentation. Over all I think that if the speaker is engaging and simply uses the power point to add to their presentation and does not simply read the slides to the listener that it can be a valuable tool.