Teaching with PowerPoint

Have you ever heard of an “ah ha” moment before? It happens when you reach an understanding of a concept or skill at a deep level. It is the equivalent to “the light bulb going on” when a student suddenly knows something that had previously baffled them. Unarguably, it is an amazing moment for both teacher and student!

I recently had one of those moments during Dennis Dunleavy’s lecture on Teaching with PowerPoint (I wonder if he saw the light bulb go on?). Dennis was showing a PowerPoint on the do’s and don’ts of PowerPoint presentations, when it hit me. “Ah ha” I thought, “I’ve done most of those don’ts,” boring colleagues, board members, and parents with slide after slide filled with text of quotes that I read to a literate audience. Hey McFly, the audience can read! What a mistake! However, I bet that all of us have sat through more than one presentation like that before.

Dennis illustrated that PowerPoint is a graphic tool to use when making a presentation. The folly of many presenters is that we use PowerPoint not as a tool, but as crutch to clutch when the thought of public speaking weakens our knees. The true “ah ha” moment came when I began to equate PowerPoint to the use of an easel. Twenty years ago, would a professional presenter stand by their easel with page after page of written text and read it word for word to their audience? Heck NO! Then why would I do the same with a PowerPoint presentation? Are they not essentially the same visual aid device with the exception of one being digital? I had to concede that yes, the function of the two devices were primarily the same and I had been misusing PowerPoint and alienating and insulting my audiences for years.

Once confronted with new information, I had a choice: continue what I had been doing and live contrary to my beliefs, or accept the information as accurate and change my ways. There was no going back to the old style of using PowerPoint (I knew my audiences were on the verge of sleeping). Therefore, I adopted the strategies offered by Dennis and created a PowerPoint presentation that was fun, interactive, and engaging!