There was much excitation that arose with the advent of digital presentation started to replace the ‘chalk and board’/ “chalk and talk”. In fact, the “chalk and talk” is still around and being used as method of preference by many educators in some countries. However, with the excitation and the simplicity of its use, PowerPoint has also brought unintended consequences that contribute to the ineffective teaching and learning process. Over the past few years, much criticism and concerns have been raised about the problems with the use of PowerPoint and how it compromised the teaching and learning processes and business communications.
However, a balanced look at the use of this communication/teaching tool may help us not to takeaway any of the apparent disadvantages. Used properly, PowerPoint has a lot of advantages as it’s name may indicate. By using ‘the power’ of ‘points’, educators explain and discuss vast topics while boiling down the complex concepts into simplified and understandable summaries. The following article which was written some years ago, reviews the pros and cons of PowerPoint.
“Part of the difficulty in objectively evaluating the use of PowerPoint in education stems directly from one of its most favorable features, namely the ease of use and the relatively shallow learning-curve required to achieve basic-level usage. This has resulted in, often questionable, practices within educational contexts. It particularly includes poorly thought-out use in lectures where it becomes simply an alternative form of presenting largely text-based material that used to be delivered using ‘old technology’ (chalk and talk): this makes little use of the new and flexible opportunities offered by use of PowerPoint within the educational field.” (Allan M Jones: (2003) The use and abuse of PowerPoint in Teaching and Learning in the Life Sciences: A Personal Overview. Bioscience Education, Volume 2, DOI: 10.3108/beej.2003.0200000).
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