I don’t think I’m a true believer.
About PowerPoint, that is.
Even writing that gives me the creeps. But I’m not going to go on about how Microsoft has changed the vocabulary of our society, etc etc etc. Even if I changed it to “Presentation”, it’d still miss the point. What am I talking about? Well, let me start with a question:
What ever happened to the cornucopia of weapons that used to be available in the preacher’s armoury? What ever happened to quotes, props, drama, anecdotes, humour, dialogue, song, poetry, voice modulation, accents, imitations, change of tone, change of volume, change of pitch, change of speed, gestures, facial expressions, pauses, silences, whole body communication…? They all seemed to be flattened by one piece of software into a deadening monotone monochrome sameness…
PowerPoint!
Well good news and bad news, but first, the news. Just recently, a newspaper article referred to research from the University of New South Wales about the non-effectiveness of PowerPoint presentations in educational situations. (I’d already been given a heads-up about this a year ago from a university student involved in that research.) Something to make you go hmmmm…..
So, for one, PowerPoint seems to make preachers forget about the other resources open to them, AND it’s questionable whether PowerPoint is an effective teaching tool in the first place. Certainly I’ve seen the dreaded audience reaction to death by PowerPoint, and even occasionally participated in murdering pew-sitters myself. Oh, if only we would learn that most important lesson: PowerPoint is more than just bullet points…
This is what I’ve worked out: if your speaking style depends a lot on story illustrations, your own facial and bodily expressions, and engaging the audience’s imagination, PowerPoint will be detrimental to you. If you have maps, charts, graphs, diagrams, images, video that are relevant to your talk (and I do mean relevant), PowerPoint can be a useful tool. But if you want to rely on PowerPoint to drive your talk, forget it.
When PowerPoint becomes your master and not your servant, then it’s gone too far. Overuse and over-dependence on this software betrays a speaker’s lack of confidence in themselves, their material, or a lack of proper prior preparation. In that case it better illustrates the speaker’s hope that he or she can pull the wool over their flock’s eyes with some razzle dazzle presentation. So don’t rely on PowerPoint to be the engine for your talk. Except for one glowing exception…
Hands down, the best use of PowerPoint I have ever seen? The gold standard?
Well, you could call it the PowerPoint presentation that changed the world. The one that introduced and made popular two words that are now part of our common vocabulary - “climate change”. Of course, I’m talking about Al Gore in his documentary An Inconvenient Truth (now available on DVD). Watch and learn. What is on display is the power of PowerPoint to transform a mediocre speaker into a tour de force. How? Because this speaker worked out how to use it in a way that is completely congruent with his very passionate message. He makes it sing and he makes it sting.
Now that’s the Power to make your Point!
Andrew is Sydneyanglicans.net's resident digital scholar and the pastor of the Asian Bible Church (ABC), a congregation of St Andrew's Cathedral, Sydney. ABC, it's easy as 1-2-3, do-re-mi"
Image courtesy of marigroth
