Wednesday, April 4th 2007
Australian study concludes that Microsoft PowerPoint is a 'disaster'
Australian professors at the University of NSW have done some significant PowerPoint research. If you ever get bored watching a PowerPoint presentation while someone is talking, then you're not alone, and there's a scientific reason behind this. Scientists have discovered that people learn best when given media on paper or verbal media. A combination of the two tends to cause a brain overload, mixes the two forms of information, and can hurt a lot more than it can help. This is due to the fact that the brain can only handle two or three tasks at once, and otherwise will start to budget time away from some tasks to help others Professor Sweller says that "It is effective to speak to a diagram, because it presents information in a different form. But it is not effective to speak the same words that are written, because it is putting too much load on the mind and decreases your ability to understand what is being presented."
These findings then go on to challenge things that have been tradition for centuries. First, this shows that if we balance, say, AIM, Windows Media Player, and a History essay, we would pay less attention to the much-more-important History essay. More importantly, these findings challenge the way we teach our children. While most school teachers use a combination of written and verbal methods to teach curriculum (usually combining both at once), the proven better approach is to present the curriculum in an either purely verbal or purely written form.
Source:
The Age
These findings then go on to challenge things that have been tradition for centuries. First, this shows that if we balance, say, AIM, Windows Media Player, and a History essay, we would pay less attention to the much-more-important History essay. More importantly, these findings challenge the way we teach our children. While most school teachers use a combination of written and verbal methods to teach curriculum (usually combining both at once), the proven better approach is to present the curriculum in an either purely verbal or purely written form.
23 Comments on Australian study concludes that Microsoft PowerPoint is a 'disaster'
"It is effective to speak to a diagram, because it presents information in a different form. But it is not effective to speak the same words that are written, because it is putting too much load on the mind and decreases your ability to understand what is being presented."
As my friend's prof calls it, "Death by Powerpoint"
It's great as a non-text supplement to a presentation, and good as an outline presentation on it's own.
People just need to realize it's not ok to write everything on a slide and read off it in a monotone to be successful.
in fact we now get marked on how well we use powerpoint to supplement our school presentations. If we use powerpoint in a way that doesnt engage the audience we get marked down.
Its very simple the whole concept, but many people still don't understand.
Also I disagree that having both paper and verbal is overloading for the brain. I understand many things a lot easier when someone makes a nice drawing to go with it while that drawing alone is pointless without the person explaining.
A good presenter, and presentation will give dot point summary and charts/diagrams which are simple and are not "too busy", (ie. have too much detail). That's what I consider important, especially to get your point across to an audience who may have a short attention span.
So I used to catch winkies after my lunch, when in a social studies, stupid name for a class without a point in HS , when they turn off lights for a slide show, dating myself? I could prop up my head so it looked like I was awake and close eyes and sleep, at least in my youth I did not snore!
Bugger!
Its like time slows down and your stoned. It also becomes harder to breathe and it hurts your eyes to look around too much. Your reaction times goto suck mode. :roll:
It's like saying "mars candybars are bad for your health" while taking about all candy. It focuses all the negativity towards one product.