Powerpoint in the Classroom

What are your reactions to the opinions expressed? Are teacher-centered uses of technology more or less effective than student-centered uses of technology?


    I was really intrigued after reading "Powerpoint is Evil" and listening to the NPR story. I had never really taken the time to think about the negative affects Powerpoint may have on students, I have only thought of the benefits. However, as I began to really think about it I have thought about the issue in a more around about kind of way. First of all, I think, and always have thought that Powerpoint are boring. If ever in class, especially in middle or high school I was given the option to do a powerpoint or make a poster or some sort of visual display, I chose the latter. I found that many times, especially in middle school Powerpoints were used to by students only because they liked making the words twirl off the pages, or they liked making the titles change colors, or they liked adding a "boink" sound as the slide switched. And while, all of this takes technology skill it has nothing to do with the content. I think this is one issue that was discussed in the NPR story, that students using Powerpoint are not able to extract the necessary content to give an oral presentation without Powerpoints bullets as their security blanket. Without powerpoint their thoughts would be jumbled, unorganized, and perhaps incoherent. And I would agree that this is because the students were never taught how to find and organize the content without some sort of Powerpoint. 
    Secondly, I have grown up being told by my dad that public speaking is one of the most important skills you could ever learn. Powerpoint is hindering that skill from a very young age. Students, businessmen, and teachers, have become too reliant on the information sitting up on the screen next to them. This in turn causes them to lose eye contact, disallows them to make a genuine connection with the audience  and unfortunately leads to a less than thrilling presentation.
     I by no means would argue that there are not valuable uses for Powerpoint especially for LD or ESL students who may need that extra help with organization or if the students are giving a presentation with bullet-point based content. 
   However, if the skills being taught are ones where students need to use inquiry to research content and then present their findings in an organized manner, perhaps teachers should start with a simple oral presentation, maybe an index card or two, before they allow students to begin to rely so heavily on Powerpoints as their crutch.