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Powerpoint sucks - what to use instead?

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dallee:
Mouser, at post 33 in this thread on page 2, mentions a New York Times article, entitled "We Have Met the Enemy and He Is PowerPoint," which has a main take-away that a slide analysis can give an illusory sense that complexities have been mastered.  The article looks at military uses (apparently at epidemic levels).  Here is one quote from the article:  “It’s dangerous because it can create the illusion of understanding and the illusion of control,” General McMaster said in a telephone interview afterward. “Some problems in the world are not bullet-izable.”  

For the purposes of this thread, particularly useful reflections on Powerpoint are in two follow-on Times posts.  First, there is a lesson plan based on this article for using it as a basis for discussing Powerpoint itself, adaptable to any group discussion.  Second, more generalized observations and comments appear in this article addressing improving educational presentations, with tips for graphic and quotable source material (and the author also likes Prezi.

Hope this adds to this thread ...

           Dallee  :Thmbsup:

cranioscopical:
Hope this adds to this thread ...
--- End quote ---

Thanks for the input.
Apparently there's little truth to the rumour that the army might be running out of bullets!

dallee:
Chris,

That was a good one!   8)

Thanks for brightening my day ...

         Dallee

daver:
   It is surprising that no one in here has mentioned Presentation, part of OpenOffice 3.x.  With its wizards, extensive help files, easy learning curve and  plethora of formatted templates (more downloadable), it's a "natural", and best of all, it is FREE! :Thmbsup:

JavaJones:
Hi daver, thanks for jumping in! I'm pretty familiar with Presenter having converted my whole company to OpenOffice a couple years ago (and recently, back to Office 2k3 :( ). But it has the same problems as Powerpoint, and - in my experience - the templating is even harder to modify, apply, and restrict. It's a fantastic free replacement for Powerpoint, but I don't think it quite fits my needs in this case. Indeed, we had been using OOo and Presenter to do our presentations initially, but found even the normal styling functions to be challenging to actually use consistently. Even Office 2k7 was an improvement, though I don't appreciate everything about it to be sure.

- Oshyan

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