PowerPoint - is it the antidote to creativity?
Guardian Unlimited | Online | PowerPoint of view
"...PowerPoint edits ideas. It is, almost surreptitiously, a business manual as well as a business suit, with an opinion - an oddly pedantic, prescriptive opinion - about the way we should think..."
Another in a long line of articles about PowerPoint. Bigger and far better is this New Yorker article (pdf->html, courtesy of google). What I thought was interesting was that kids *love* using PowerPoint in their classes - my 13yr old focus group said they use it all the time - they like the animations, control over text and so on.
It's been a big bug bear for me, and I've been casually on the hunt for a replacement. In fact, I want some version of Hypercard, or at least reading about it, I think I want it. Here's part of a brief writeup I did of an MA conversation I participated in:
"..In contrast, it is useful to examine an application that is arguably more effective at enabling creative presentation. One such application is HyperCard, which has been used effectively by staff at Ultralab:
"...the main advantages (of HyperCard) are its flexibility in that it allows the presenter to access the components of the presentation in pretty much any order...if someone in the audience asks a question the presenter can access a particular resource to help the explanation. Isn't this how we more naturally learn, by engaging in conversations and "enquiring" with each other?" (Powell S, 2002)
Some of the elements of Heppell’s HyperCard presentation (Heppell S, 2002), which Dickinson and Powell reference, is the ability to easily create movable elements that facilitate “visual storytelling”, launching video and other multimedia (Dickinson G, 2002). HyperCard’s open and flexible interface, providing access to creative tools, rather than templates enables students to develop educationally:
“…Because of the many options available to students in this mode of presentation, they were able to make connections and see relationships between the various facts, concepts, and opinions they encountered in their research” (Johnson J, 2000)
NLE environments that provide ‘blank canvases’ coupled with easy to use tools offer more creative and educational utility than prescriptive, wizard driven software applications. NLE practitioners need to be aware of the dangers of prescriptive presentation software..."
So, taking into account all the above, I was thrilled when I saw Keynote being demoed. And it's very nice; PowerPoint done right. But not better. I want hypercard lite - I want to build interactions right in my presentations. I want to drag and drop elements. I want pretty much a simple, but interacyive environment. Maybe it's there and I'm missing it. And the template system, whilst very interesting, offers pretty grotty templates. At least Keynote is extensible in this way. Still, it ain't the killer product I was hoping for.
