PowerPoint As A Teaching Tool - It's Broken

Jason Olson — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 16:07:00 GMT

Yup, I said it. PowerPoint as a teaching tool? It's broken. It's broken badly. And unfortunately, there is a good number of people out there who either don't realize it, or don't care.

First of all, thanks Seth Godin. Seth gave a presentation at GEL 2006 recently (link via PresentationZen, via Chris Sells), where he talked about things that are broken. He mentioned in the video that from now on out, we will start making the same observations and share with him one of his annoyances. Well, he didn't lie. It's only 24 hours later, and I'm starting to think of certain things as "broken".

This concept of "PPT As A Teaching Tool" that people seem to like? Again, it's broken. Now, as a Technical Evangelist, I think education is a big part of our job. We not only need to educate ISVs and other business partners, we need to educate other Microsoft employees, and we need to educate the community. Using PPT as a major "Teaching Tool" though? Broken. Borked. Use the right tool for the right job. If you are wanting to provide "a resource" to educate people though, don't use PowerPoint, please! ... (Read More)