Power-Pointaphobia

I must admit right now that I have always been a little afraid of power-point. Its not that I can't create one that's the problem, I'm comfortable with the technology and I'm usually confident with the material I'm covering as well. It really has a lot more to do with the fact that I know just how easily I become enchanted by the flashy transitions and array of color schemes, often forgetting what the real focus and purpose of the presentation is.

My solution has been to avoid them. I often play with the transitions early in my presentation planning, tempted to create a simply marvelous eye-popping display, only to come to my senses and recognize what I've created as an over the top slide show of what power point can do to distract from one's message. And that is when I simply hit delete and opt for a low-tech poster, handouts, chalkboard notes, or just plain me behind a podium.

This is exactly what Jamie McKenzie describes in Scoring Power Points, his look at how power-points fail and what changes we can make to them to create a success out of a dud. His solutions unlike mine don't result in throwing in the towel but rather re-evaluating the tool. If we look at creating the presentation as a mere 20% of the overall project and put the bulk of the work into the research portion we're apt to be prepared with more informational substance beyond the visuals that serve to complement and enhance our message.

The key is in first creating a great presentation that can stand alone. If the data you've gathered is interesting, if you know the topic well, if you have practiced your vocal delivery, and are prepared to engage your audience then you are ready to add the multimedia aspect of your presentation or speech.

We've all seen the bad presentations filled with too many words or boring images and seen the struggling presenter reading their speech from each slide. Students themselves are probably quite familiar with the pointlessness that can result from such presentations. If you asked a classroom of high school sophomores what they thought of the term power-pointlessness I'm sure many of them would consider it an accurate description of many of the presentations they've seen by teachers and fellow classmates alike. If as educators we wish to change our students opinions on such presentations we must begin by modeling what a good multimedia presentation is and provide them with the remaining standards on which to base their own work.

McKenzie suggests that through our modeling of quality presentations, creation of criteria for student presentations, emphasis of content and critical thinking, concern for accurate and attractive design, and expectation of engaging speech presentation that is delivered and not read, we can once again find the point of power-points.