Think Before You Use PowerPoint

Between the American Society of Criminology meeting and end-of-semester student presentations, I get burned out on PowerPoint by this time of year.  I end my Responsible Use of Information in Criminal Justice course with a lecture on the visual presentation of information and I rely heavily on Edward Tufte’s work, particularly his essay on The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint.  I really think this essay should be required reading for all graduate students.  Getting professionals to stop using PowerPoint is probably a futile endeavor, and that’s not really my goal since I also use PowerPoint for teaching and presentations.  Instead I’m simply trying to get students to think critically about how they present information regardless of the format and to discourage them from trying to get technology to do the work for them.  Today I stumbled upon a new and fun example of how PowerPoint is misused.  It’s a slideshow called Death by PowerPoint available at the Slideshare site.