powerpoint

When I think of a powerpoint presentation, I think of an easy way out of a big presentation. Rather than compiling information and conveying it through an essay or just an oral presentation, we now have the ability to fragment these ideas and paste them to a presentation of slides. Of course this idea may be useful when a lot of information needs to be conveyed, but sometimes I feel like with a powerpoint presentation the presenter in less focused on the audience and more focused on the screen. Powerpoint, to me, may be the shy mans way out of a presentation yet, as Edward Tufte said, "slideware-computer programs for presentations- is everywhere." The use of a powerpoint presentation is almost inescapable, even being used in the classrooms today. Tufte writes that, "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." If students are not reading more than 15 seconds, then, in my opinion, they are not learning. I had a professor and she taught everything on powerpoints. They would be flashy, with lots of graphics, and I hated it. I was more focused on what clip art would pop up next, rather than what my professor was saying. I found it difficult to copy down what was written on the powerpoint, as well as listen to her, since I had to constantly look up and down at my paper. Half of the time I missed what she explained about the slide. As mentioned before, powerpoints on fragment information, so when presenting on them, further information is needed. By missing what she explaining about the slide, I missed the whole lecture. I need a professor in the classroom, not a powerpoint presentation.