I agree with your good blog, and there’s even a simpler reason to eschew Power Point most of the time: when you put up a slide, you’re asking the audience to do two things at once (pay attention to you and to the slide). Most audiences are not very good at doing two things at once, especially when they’re hearing something for the first time.

I am going to make more of an effort to ‘test’ the content of both well and poorly presented media. The well presented, because it can disguise thoughless content; and the poorly presented becuase it could hide the genius!

I am intrigued by what you say about us developing a new vocabulary which is both verbal and visual at once. I see this when teenagers in the church lead us in prayer – to them this combined language comes naturally.

Until that time, if Powerpoint (™) with its business presentation background reinforces the didacticism of dry, conceptual exposition, then it is a step backward!

I completely agree, Richard! Interestingly, I think I am finding a similar temptation with lecture presentation. In preparing a lecture on a subject which (I think!) I know well, it’s tempting simply to start by doing a powerpoint presentation, using bullet points. My thought process is ‘I know this stuff, I know what I mean, I can easily “talk to” this presentation without further notes.’ But I have started to wonder if this can sometimes cause an element of rambling and therefore confusion for the students (especially on those occasions when I forget what I originally meant by the bullet point!!) This year I will be reverting to a more ‘traditional’ approach at least for some lectures, writing them out more or less in full, and only doing the powerpoint presentation afterwards. This may have the added advantage of reducing stress levels as I have a sharper idea of what I actually want to communicate. We’ll see how it goes…