Microsoft Powerpoint

Since we're just now starting Powerpoint, I thought I would share 5 things that I dislike about a Powerpoint presentation.  First of all (and this is true in general, but especially in Powerpoint), when some people capitalize every other letter in a title.  It's as if they think that typing like a four year old will deliver a greater impact... which is RiDiCuLoUs, and not at all aesthetically pleasing.  Secondly, obnoxious sound effects are not my favorite.  If anything, they are simply distracting the audience from the presentation.  I also dislike when people cram paragraphs of information onto a single slide.  Powerpoints are meant for summarizing information; the presenter is supposed to be there in order elaborate on each slide.  Providing too much information could just mean that the individual is excited about the material... but most likely, it means that they don't know the material well enough to fully present their topic without training wheels.  Fourth: I don't like when Powerpoint presentations are too long.  No topic should be stretched out for 400 slides, no matter how fascinating it is.  Lastly, I dislike it when the style of the slides isn't appropriately selected.  The creator of the Powerpoint needs to choose background colors, text colors, pictures, and transitions in such a way that will not detract from the material or lose the interest of the audience.  This can be a little more complicated than just using common sense - people spend tons of time and money selecting colors and fonts for advertisements in order to more or less "manipulate" the audience in terms of how they feel when they view the advertisement.  So obviously, being sloppy in selecting a background color is more forgivable than typing LiKe ThIs.  But still - it's nice to see a Powerpoint that is pleasing to the eye.

Despite these minor annoyances, I believe that Powerpoint is a very useful tool, especially today.  A lot of people are visual learners, and although Powerpoints are very useful (and necessary) when giving reports and presentations in a job setting, the most applicable example of a useful Powerpoint is one we have all experienced here in the classrooms at Trinity.  I'm a neuroscience major on the pre-med track, and when I'm taking a hard science class (versus a soft science class; not a "difficult" science class) such as Biology or Intro to Neuroscience, it's extremely helpful to look at Powerpoint slides of say, the Carbon Cycle or the Somatosensory Pathway.  When you hear a professor talk about a subject, it's easy to miss something and get lost.  But when you're hearing the professor AND observing a slide that gives a visual representation, it's not only easier to understand the topic, but it's easier to remember it and recall it later (at least for me, anyway - I'm definitely a visual learner).  Without the use of Powerpoint in my classes, I think I would have a much harder time keeping up with the lecture and creating a visual map in my head of what's really going on.