PowerPoint, habits of mind, and classroom culture

Abstract

In lecture halls, in secondary school classrooms, during training workshops, and at research conferences, PowerPoint is becoming a preferred method of communicating, presenting, and sharing knowledge. Questions have been raised about the implications of the use of this new medium for knowledge dissemination. It is suggested PowerPoint supports a cognitive and pedagogical style inconsistent with both the development of higher analytical thinking skills and the acquisition of rich narrative and interpretive understanding. This paper examines how PowerPoint invites and seduces educators to reshape knowledge in particular ways, and subsequently how this knowledge is presented to students in the classroom. The particular forms of knowing, relating, and presenting with PowerPoint are decided in part by teacher habituation to the software tool’s default patterns, but also by the very nature of the presentation medium itself.