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PowerPoint Bad For Learning
cute-boy writes "This article in the Sydney Morning Herald reporting on research done at The University of NSW suggests the use of Microsoft PowerPoint (and similar products) in lectures and meetings actually makes it harder to absorb facts, rather than being a reinforcement of key points."
Is it PowerPoint's fault, or the fault of the Powerpoint creator? I always hate it when someone dumps all the information onto the slide, because it does make it hard to follow along. Whenever I do a presentation, the bullets on my slides are extremely brief, usually no more than 4-5 words. I want people to look at the bullet, see I'm going to be talking about Topic X, and then listen to what I have to say. This allows people to take notes as necessary and it allows them to pay attention to what I'm saying.
I thought it was common knowledge that creating a presentation with brief bullets was the "proper" way to do it. There's no point in even doing a presentation if you're just going to read off the slides, you may as well email it out and not waste people's time.
I've been seeing crappy slideshow presentations longer than computers have been around. Don't get all anti-MS FUD crazy again and start blaming this on MS: the problem is with the presentation format, not the application.
Where's the powerpoint displaying the findings?
However, this guy isn't decrying the effectiveness of visual aids. We can thank Dimitry Martin for that proof (observe his visual aids when explaining the google/viacom spat: http://www.jimmyr.com/blog/Google_Youtube_Viacom_
-dave
6th Street Radio @ddombrowsky
Tufte is correct about a lot of things related to data presentation, but I think he lets Powerpoint become the focal point for a lot of his complaints that would be better directed elsewhere.
He doesn't like Microsoft style graphs. While you can create a graph from inside Powerpoint, you are actually doing in in MS Graph (or some similar name). He doesn't like 'chartoonery', but that isn't Powerpoints problem either. Gaudy slide backgrounds and car crash noises probably fit though.
What he is actually unhappy about is more that many people trade in visual tricks for good quality data and analysis. You can hide the fact that you entirely missed the causal variable in your analysis of rocket motor O-ring failure if you enthrall the audience with little rocket motor shaped pictures on your graphs. A more accurate title for the essay you quote might have been "The Cognitive Style of Computer Software", because there are a whole lot of bits and pieces of programs that go into making all these stupid presentations. Tufte will even admit that Powerpoint is just fine for feeding slides to your projector, just don't actually create content in it.
"Sacrifice for the good of The State" - The State
Graphic and layout design is not easy. Why do you think so many websites look like crap? For the same reason most PowerPoints do: few people have the talent to effectively organize and present information. I've worked on a few publications and have some Photoshop/InDesign classes under my belt. If I must, I can create a decent slideshow that doesn't make people slam their heads against the table in frustration :)
In skilled hands, PowerPoint can be a powerful tool. But it can just as easily ruin a meeting or presentation if the user doesn't know what he's doing...
Its presenting exact same information in the same manner (i.e., the same words) in multiple different formats simultaneously hurts retention. As John Sweller states in TFA:
Of course, anyone who has taken a basic speech class that discusses effective use of visual aids would know that's exactly the wrong use of a visual aid, computerized or otherwise. So, while its interesting research that reveals that what is widely accepted by experts in the field of communication to be a bad practice is actually demonstrably counterproductive to recall rather than merely an annoyance to the audience that isn't an optimum use of resources, its not any kind of particular blow against PowerPoint, presentation software, or visual aids in presentation, just further reinforcement that having an easy-to-use tool to produce and display visual aids doesn't replace understanding how to effectively use them.
I think this perfectly illustrates the problem with Powerpoint. When you watch a lecture with blackboard and chalk, you actually see the ideas develop on the board (if the lecturer is doing a good job). The lecturer can go back and emphasize certain parts of the text or graph, circle things, even erase parts of equations and change them to something else, you can actually witness the analytical process the lecture is trying to convey. In addition to that, you will actually see the lecturer in person interact with the text, graphics and data, which I believe can greatly help your learning. Powerpoint just isn't good at emulating that sort of stuff, and that's why I never use it. Sometimes I use various LaTeX presentation packages, that make it relatively easy to do things like develop equations and formulas step by step, emphasize selected parts of equations, build graphs and diagrams step by step etc. It's not perfect, but it's definitely better than what you can do with Powerpoint. Paradoxically, even with all the animations, fancy transitions etc, 99.99% of Powerpoint presentations end up being much more static than a good chalkboard lecture.
There is also another thing that I believe is nicely illustrated by your example. Experts on human learning seem to agree that people learn better if the environment in which they study changes. Which means that a lecturer should every once a while change his or her presentation style. Using slides one day and chalkboard another day, perhaps depending on topic that is covered, can definitely help your students to learn. Too many professors have their own routine (I do too, it's just so easy to do that) they follow each lecture. Students then come to the class, make sure that everything is the way it's "supposed to be", and turn off. They make a routine out of it, too. A sudden change as the one you describe can bring them back, break their routine, and precondition (I hate that word here, but I can't think of anything better right now) them for absorbing the material better. Even if the actual delivery on that day isn't any better, at least it wakes some of the students up!
AccountKiller
Speaking of Edward Tufte, check out 'The Cognitive Style of Powerpoint: Pitching out Corrupts Within' for an excellent critique on the misuse of PowerPoint and a primer on the best way to use this tool.
At the core of Tufte's argument is the notion that PowerPoint (and other slideware) encourages intellectual laziness on the part of the presenter, because it allows a presenter to build a presentation around the software, using it as a crutch. Instead of thinking through complex information and then determining how to augment the oral presentation with selected PowerPoint information, most presenters dumb down the subject matter for PowerPoint. The result is a presentation that has been dumbed-down to suit the needs of the software, not the audience. The presenter is happy, Microsoft is happy, but the audience is not being well-served.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
More advice from Dave Messerschmitt.
Re: PP, I agree with some other posts I've seen here that PP can be used badly or well. Most of the aweful PP talks I've seen would have been just as bad (and possibly worse) with another technology.
That said, it's not as though all tools for a given task are equivalent. I'm a lot more likely to make a long straight cut using a table saw with a guide than I am using a hand saw without a guide (and possibly even with).
In this regard, I don't think PP is nearly as bad an offender as MS Word, because Word makes it far too easy to do bad things, like ignore styles, and hard to do good things, like use styles instead of one-off formatting. (In fairness, it seems to be improving, but is still a far cry from, say, FrameMaker from 1992.)
The problem is, learning about some new phone doesn't exactly require much intellectual effort on the part of the audience. I really don't think that's the sort of thing that this study is referring to.
I'm a recent university grad. Some professors chose to use PowerPoint and others did not. Of all the lectures, professional presentations, meetings etc I've attended, Powerpoint was never really the problem. Sure it is if its distracting. The slides aren't to the point. But the best presentations are when presenters challenge the audience's views, are engaging, make accurate statements, and interpret the material correctly. Powerpoint slides don't do this, people do. That's what's missing.
No, they just fail to accord with your expectations based on your beliefs about how multiple learning styles should make the results turn out.
No, its not. The results show that that doesn't work. And, you know, you explain what may be part of the reason why: most learners are strong in both visual and auditory, though which they are strongest in varies. So perhaps getting identical information down the channels people tend not to shut out increases distraction without much increasing the effectiveness of the most effective channel.
That doesn't mean you don't use visual and audio in an effective presentation: this finding is about how you make an effective presentation combining them, and its not by presenting the same words simultaneously in different media.
Different segments appealing to different senses (or breaking up boredom) is completely different from presenting identical information in different channels concurrently.
It really irritates me that most of the comments in the discussion of this article have focused on the presenters and why PowerPoint is evil. Being a good listener and paying attention to the material is even more important than the quality of the PowerPoint presentation and the handouts. The slides and handouts don't matter at all if you just don't want to be in a meeting or attending a class.
I recently taught a college level science course that is typically taken by non-science majors to fulfill graduation requirements. The other instructors in our department recommended that I make my PowerPoint slides available on the course web site before the lectures. When I started doing this, I found that about 75% of the class did stopped coming to the lectures. Warning the students that they would miss important material from demonstrations, discussions, and in-class activities if they skipped lectures did not make any difference in attendance. The students who were interested in the course and willing to do the work to earn good grades downloaded the notes, came to the lectures, and participated in class discussions and activities. Unfortunately, most of the students were only taking the class because their academic advisers forced them to take it or because they were expecting an easy "A." These students downloaded the notes, frequently skipped class, did not participate in class discussions, and then complained that their low test scores were due to my bad teaching, not their lack of effort. Making the PowerPoint slides available before a lecture only helps the students who actually want to learn. If the students aren't willing to take an active role in their own learning experience, nothing the instructor does will help them to learn or retain the material presented in class.
The same basic idea applies to business meetings and conferences. If you're not paying attention and being an active listener, then it does not matter whether or not the presenter is a good speaker or uses PowerPoint. Having a copy of the slides beforehand does not matter if you decide to skip the meeting since you already have the notes. It also does not help having the slides ahead of time if you do not study them to prepare for the meeting, or if you just sit there passively listening during the meeting. People learn better and retain more when their minds are actively engaged in a presentation through note-taking or discussions of the material being presented.
That explains why their presentations SUCK compared to Jobs'. He spends a lot of time on his keynotes, and it shows.
And sorry, but "They have larger issues on their minds?" What the hell is larger than making a major presentation for a major product launch, for the company they're in charge of? How much their options have sucked in the last five years?
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The way I read it, Norman is asserting that the "slides are written for the benefit of the speaker." He then follows it up with a valid question that his assertion raises, but he never actually gets around to addressing that question. He sets the stage, but then goes and talks about other things. When you point out a counter-argument, you are supposed to refute it.
By the way, I'm not trying to be a shill for Tufte. I just think that Norman's essay isn't the kind of thing to be holding up as good criticism of Tufte. And I don't think my quoting cut out the meaning of his statements. I quoted the introductory sentence of a paragraph, commented on it, then quoted the last sentence of that paragraph. (You should have finished reading my comment before calling me a shill.) I was not being intellectually dishonest. I simply commented on the most provocative portion of the essay, which also happens to be a totally unsupported claim.
If you get modded down, it should be for not reading my comment, not because the mods respect Tufte.