Growing, Detrimental use of Powerpoint

I previously posted links to articles discussing the inappropriate use of Powerpoint - particularly in lower grades. I've been reading Thomas Rick's "Fiasco" . Ricks' mentions that Powerpoint was used to draft and communicate battle and reconstruction plans in Iraq:

[Army Lt. General David] McKiernan had another, smaller but nagging issue: He couldn't get Franks to issue clear orders that stated explicitly what he wanted done, how he wanted to do it, and why. Rather, Franks passed along PowerPoint briefing slides that he had shown to Rumsfeld: "It's quite frustrating the way this works, but the way we do things nowadays is combatant commanders brief their products in PowerPoint up in Washington to OSD and Secretary of Defense…In lieu of an order, or a frag [fragmentary order], or plan, you get a bunch of PowerPoint slides…[T]hat is frustrating, because nobody wants to plan against PowerPoint slides."

Yet, Powerpoint is widely used in schools. Garr Reynolds has more.

Some alternatives - outliners that help conceptualize a work prior to expressing it in words. Internet outliners are extraordinarly powerful:

• Omni Outliner
• OPML Editor
• OPML Manager

Much more, here.

Don Norman: In Defense of Powerpoint.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at August 13, 2006 6:10 PM
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