Stephen and others, Thought you might find this an interesting follow-up to your comments regarding powerpoint.
PowerPoint Makes You Dumb (The New York Times) see: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/14/magazine/14POWER.html?ex=1071982800&en=799ad449b398c2d7&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE Ultimately, Tufte concluded, PowerPoint is infused with "an attitude of commercialism that turns everything into a sales pitch." Rodd On Thu, 2003-11-27 at 18:52, SF & P Webb wrote: > Technology is a tool, but a tool is not a friend and is often a rival. > Unlike your audience, machines don't wish you well. Use as few gizmos > as possible, and then check everything to be sure everything's in > working order. Don't try out a complex set of visuals for the first > time when giving an important lecture. Consider, too, that some great > lecturers don't want any visuals at all, since those lovely pictures > in a darkened room draw attention away from the speaker herself. (By > the way, if you're speaking in a room with a blackboard, be sure to > erase it clean. If your lecture begins to falter, your audience may > focus instead on chalk scribbles and what they can remember of > quadratic equations or the Russian patronymics in Dostoyevsky.) > > PowerPoint is for sissies. All right, not for sissies, exactly, but > it's being done to death. PowerPoint Makes Everything Really Important > in a Telegraphic Way. That's Fine in Some Cases, But It Gets Tiring > When It Happens Too Much. Besides, PowerPoint is the triumph of the > quick "fact" over the art of argumentation. And a lecture is, or > should be, a kind of argument. It's more, too -- a chance to observe a > voice, a body, a brain, and a personality engaging an audience with > similar interests. If you put your bulleted ideas up on slides, your > audience will look at the slides, not at you. You'll also be teaching > them that What You Have to Say Can Be Summarized in a Few Words. Can > it? > > http://chronicle.com/free/v50/i14/14b01501.htm ------------------------------------------------------ - You are subscribed to the mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] - To unsubscribe, email [EMAIL PROTECTED] and put in the message body 'unsubscribe insights-l' (ell, not one (1)) See: http://nsw.uca.org.au/insights-l-information.htm ------------------------------------------------------
