Powerpointlessness

Powerpointlessness is using technology just to use it for technology sake. Powerpointlessness typically involves the use of too many bullets, cliché clip art, simple thoughts, and one liner's that the presenter does not expand upon. It addition, powerpointlessness can also be defined as having a presenter that does not communicate effectively and exhibits poor eye contact.

Throughout my career I have been the viewer of many powerpoint presentations, and I have to say, their have been some that seemed to exude “pointlessness”. I have witnessed presentations where the presenter read word for word from the slides. I have also had the pleasure of viewing slides with too many bullet points on one slide, slides with major grammatical errors, and slides that have used terrible background colors and slide designs that distracts from the presentation itself.

In order to teach our students the correct format and use of powerpoint, we need to show them examples of well done and well presented powerpoint slides. Students should also be taught to prepare their presentations based on rubrics, such as organization of content, originality, format, platform transferability, subject knowledge, graphical design, mechanics, screen design, and use of enhancements. This way they will know what they are being evaluated on and thus will tailor their powerpoint slides appropriately. It may also prove effective to engage students in then writing their own rubrics with teacher support and guidance. According to McKenzie, student performance is likely to improve
by reading over such rubrics in advance.

There are several key points mentioned in the McKenzie article regarding powerpointlessness that are key in teaching students have to become good artists in the field of powerpoint slide design. It is important that student’s are taught to:
1. Maintain depth and complexity. According to McKenzie, it is important that we as teachers do what we can to combat what he terms “Mentalsoftness™ “ which is the tendency to settle for clichés, bromides and platitudes rather than conducting an earnest, probing investigation.
2. Provide sufficient evidence. It is important to build a solid foundation of the case being made.
3. Consider their audience. The goal is to inform, enlighten and possibly even change someone's mind. Students must be taught that the chances of reaching an audience are greatly increased if the presenter tries to understand the group and its characteristics
4. Eliminate distractions
5. Select powerful images. Much of the clip art commercially available to students is quite limited and limiting. Being in the technology age we should teach students to make use of digital camera imagery and artwork wherever possible.
6. Distill words. Students must understand that slides are meant to share main ideas, phrases and key points. Slides should rarely offer more than a dozen words each.
7. Speak concisely and effectively to a group about the ideas represented by the slides. They should not read the slides to the group.
8. Make sure their slides have harmony, proportion, balance, restraint, and originality.
9. Deliver dramatically. students must master strategies to develop and maintain contact, engagement, credibility and trust. Much depends upon the manner with which personal qualities are communicated. If character and sincerity accompany the words, the audience is less likely to dismiss the presentation as mere rhetoric.
10. Maintain eye contact. An effective speaker creates a strong connection with the audience by establishing eye contact with each member of the audience at various points throughout the presentation. Students should be taught to have the ability to alter their presentation based on non verbal cues of the audience.
11. Avoid reading slides out loud, because the words on the slides are meant to be talking points only. We should trust the audience to read them without our help and turn our own efforts toward elaboration and exploration in a fresh voice that reaches out into the room warmly and sincerely.
12. Speak with conviction. It seems to be an essential aspect of citizenship - the ability to recognize and debunk the falsely sincere and manipulative speaker, the glib presentation.
In utilizing the well written and concise points by McKenzie, we as teachers can communicate the skills of power pointing to our students in a way that they will be excited to master their skills in developing powerpoint slides.