So what's wrong with the bullet list, anyway?

The bullet list
Despite its ever-increasing popularity, concerns have been raised about PowerPoint’s suitability for purpose. Its most devastating critic is Edward Tufte who in a controversial essay (Tufte, 2003) claimed that, compared to more traditional means of presenting information, PowerPoint slideshows were of poor quality. He argued that PowerPoint corrupts statistical reasoning and that it often weakens verbal and spatial thinking. Further, he lambasted it for its ‘Stalinist’ control of slide design which, often as not, results in an hierarchical bulleted list. The bulleted list, he argued, is an impoverished communication form and he illustrated his reasoning with some striking examples (e.g. Norvig, 1999; Tufte, 2003b).

Tufte was far from a lone voice in this criticism. Sweller (2007) claimed that PowerPoint usage in lectures ran counter to good teaching principles derived from cognitive load theory. He argued that expecting students to read text displayed on a screen, whilst simultaneously listening to a teacher, put undue cognitive demands on students. ‘The use of the PowerPoint presentation has been a disaster’, he declared, ‘it should be ditched.’ These, and similar criticisms from others, have challenged the prevailing enthusiasm for PowerPoint and generated a vigorous debate about the value of presentation software.

Research findings
In their comprehensive review of PowerPoint research studies, Levasseur & Sawyer (2006) reported that most students held favourable attitudes towards the use of PowerPoint in lectures. Students found lectures more interesting and entertaining; they believed also that PowerPoint helped with the organisation of the lecture and assisted with note-taking. However, despite students’ positive attitudes, the authors could find little convincing evidence from any of the studies they reviewed that using PowerPoint improved learning outcomes.

Some clues as to why this might be so are provided by Adams (2006). She reminds us that PowerPoint is a tool and as such it is an ‘evocative object’ and invites its users to employ it in specific ways. ‘PowerPoint,’ she argues ‘exerts invisible lines of force on the choices teachers make’, leading them to produce impoverished slideshows consisting of bulleted lists.

The culprits
The culprits for this situation, asserts Adams, are the Microsoft software designers who made the assumption that a bulleted list would be the most useful knowledge form required by users and so the default program options are set to produce this. The designers incorporated various support features into PowerPoint to make it possible for a novice to create a slideshow with a minimum of technical knowledge. They developed for instance the infamous auto-content wizard which allows a beginner to generate a complete presentation by filling in a sequence of boxes on the screen. The software takes these entries and creates a fully-fledged set of slides – in bulleted lists, naturally. In addition to the auto-content wizard, the PowerPoint user encounters frequent and intrusive on-screen prompts such as ‘Click to add text’ which serve also to automate the slide design. Finally, slideshow templates are provided which require only that the user types in at the prompts and PowerPoint takes care of the design.

So what’s wrong with the bulleted list? Plenty, according to Adams. Every subject domain, she reminds us, has developed its own particular knowledge forms needed to communicate an understanding of its content. The bulleted list risks sidelining many of these and substituting them with an inappropriate alternative. PowerPoint’s hegemony she argues ‘is rendering obsolete valuable, perhaps critical knowledge forms’. Teachers need to act vigorously against PowerPoint’s ‘soft determinism’ and design slides that go beyond the bulleted list.

Reluctance to change
And yet many of us are reluctant to do so. We have got into a way of working with the technology that suits us and we find ourselves resisting calls for change; even when those calls appear well grounded. In my case it took nearly two years for the implications of what the research was reporting to begin to influence my practice – and even then, the initial changes I made were slight indeed. Concerned about this mismatch between theory and practice I began to keep a reflective journal about my use of PowerPoint and I'll recount here (at a later date) some of the issues that have emerged in my writing and subsequent practice.

Slideshows that make you think.

What is Slideshare?
Slideshare is a web site where you can upload your PowerPoint presentations. Not surprisingly, there are presentations about making presentations. Here I introduce some of the ones which I've found useful in helping me think about how I design my slides.

Taking Your Slide Deck to the Next Level

This engaging presentation by Scott Elias tackles some of the key issues to take into account when you're creating a PowerPoint. It is accompanied by a lively commentary.

Death by PowerPoint

Alexei Kapterev's presentation was something of a sensation when released. It highlights weaknesses in the design of many presentataions and goes on to make practical suggestions on to improve them.

Presenting with Text

If you thought a presentation without pictures would be dull and uninspiring - think again. This PowerPoint shows that a little thought you can make text communicate very effectively indeed.

Brain rules

Garr Reynolds has designed this excellent presentation.

Tweaking a PowerPoint Presentation

Question-driven
I'm starting to reflect a little more carefully about how I design presentations for my classes. Last week, for example, I was down to provide some induction sessions for our newly arrived PGCE (Primary) student teachers. Given that new students arrive with lots of questions I opted to create the PowerPoint in the style of a FAQ, i.e. question-driven. It was me that was dispensing the information so I chose a design style with an emphasis on graphics and small amounts of text. Here's an example slide.

First version of slide

Create expectation
At first, I was reasonably pleased with the results of this effort. However, on some further thought I realised that my slides began by asking a question - and then answering it! Far better, I thought, to put up questions up on the slides thereby creating an expectation in the students' minds which my spoken contribution would answer. So here's version 2 of the same slide . . .

Slide - version 2

Visual cues
This works much better. You'll see I've highlighted the word "get" in red. This technique of providing visual cues is effective in directing the viewer's attention to key parts of the screen. John Sweller has researched this at some length in developing his Cognitive Load Theory and I find myself making increasing use of it in preparing presentations.

Use Notes
However, there is a down side to removing unnecessary text from the slides, i.e. I couldn't be sure of remembering what I needed to say! In the event I found a straightforward solution to this problem. I used the Notes section in PowerPoint to type up my content and then printed out both slides and notes to take into class. Problem solved!

Slide - version 2 with notes

Adding hyperlinks
I use the web a lot to illustrate points given in classes. A remaining niggle with the design of the presentation so far was the need to latch hyperlinks on to a screen object. Usually I do this by attaching the link to some screen text. However, with little text in sight I'd lost my choice of anchor. I got round this by creating a simple bevelled button in PowerPoint itself and positioning it in the corner of the slide. This acted as an aide-memoire when I was talking.

Button with hyperlink

The button was located at the bottom right of the screen.

Final version
And the students' induction sessions appeared to go well - although sadly, nobody commented on the quality of my presentation! View the final version - PGCE Induction session.

Welcome

Welcome to my blog about the use of presentation technology in teaching. This topical and controversial subject is attracting the attention of many educators - not least those who work in higher education where I teach.

I want to reflect on current debates about the impact of presentation technology on teaching. I intend also to highlight what I consider to be worthwhile sources of information, as well as considering examples of good practice out there.