I have never been very technologically savvy. I have always been partial to simply writing down my thoughts down with my favorite pen and marking up an entire piece of paper with my scattered thoughts. For the most part I have fought technology and then my senior year of high school, I was forced to use PowerPoint (and several other programs I wasn’t familiar with at the time) my senior year of high school. Going by Ian Parker’s tone and attitude towards Power Point, I feel that I can relate to him in regards to technology and how it has affected the work force.
For as long as I can remember I always loathed the idea of strict, rigid, guidelines ideas, or anything that is even a slight threat to my creativity. I am a firm believer that there are two (or more) ways to do things and the thought of conforming to a specific template format was never meant for me. One part of the article that really struck me was when Parker discusses the fear some people have toward a blank Power Point page: “’What we need is some automatic content! a former Microsoft developer recalls, laughing. ‘Punch the button and you’ll have a presentation.”’ The fact that there are programs that can pretty much do the work for you is astonishes me. Perhaps I’m just an old-timer stuck in a twenty year-old’s body, but conveying your ideas and thoughts onto a blank piece of paper is the only way to go. It defeats the whole purpose of creating a Power Point in the first place. Being restricted and guided by a computer who ‘knows better’ than me is not my cup of tea.
Even though I use Microsoft Word on a daily basis, Power Point just is not something that thrills me (obviously). I think Parker would agree when I say that programs with strict, cookie-cutter formatting will be the death of creativity and originality as we know it. Melodramatic I know, but when a professor does not include a book on his Power Point simply because he does not know how to conform it to a few bullet points, you know there's a problem deveolping.
While I am relatively computer-literate, I also prefer actually writing things down on a piece of paper. I find that when I do this I tend to remember the information better later on. I can also see what Parker is saying about how different kinds of technology like PowerPoint have affected the workforce. As it talks about in the article, since the departments within companies are communicating more with one another, they don’t understand the different jargons. Those companies turned to PowerPoint as a way to clearly explain these jargons and other unfamiliar concepts to different departments.
ReplyDeleteThere is actually a program called Prezi that can be used instead of PowerPoint for presentations. I learned about it only recently, but it’s an interesting alternative because it allows users to make non-linear presentations instead of just progressing forwards as with PowerPoint slides. It would probably take some time to get used to using Prezi, but I think you might like this program because it allows for more freedom than PowerPoint. Since you’re not restricted by progressing in only one direction, you could choose how you want to present the information.
I also seem to squirm when guidelines seem to strict or uniform and impulsively want to go against the flow. Although the PowerPoint is a good way to organize ideas it isn't the only way and a lot of the creative process is taken out when you must categorize everything according to one system.
ReplyDeletePrezi sounds like something that would certainly be up my alley. Honestly, I'd rather use most anything else but Power Point at this point in my college career. Thanks for the information!
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