We need to talk about PowerPoint

Abstract

Why is this an important issue for history teachers? In part, because of the increasingly influential role that PowerPoint (or other presentation software) has played in history teaching over the past decade, particularly since the widespread availability of data projectors within ‘ordinary’ classrooms (OECD, 2010). In some schools, the combination of data projector and PowerPoint presentation has become one of the most prevalent modes of pedagogy, superseding the ‘textbook’ paradigm which had previously been dominant in history teaching in the UK (Beswick, 2011; Haydn, 2011). A recent OECD study of the use of new technology in UK classrooms suggested that, in some schools, pupils were being given a ‘staple diet’ of PowerPoint (or interactive whiteboard) presentations as they moved from lesson to lesson (OECD, 2010). One of my colleagues recently told me that large numbers of pupils at his school had sent a petition to the head teacher to protest about the excessive use of PowerPoint, and a number of the mentors in our initial teacher education partnership have told me that they sometimes forbid student teachers to use PowerPoint for a period of time, as they are concerned about student dependence on this mode of teaching. At the time of writing, it seems reasonable to claim that PowerPoint (or equivalent) is a routinely used tool for teaching history in the UK. It is not just a problem of the pervasiveness of PowerPoint and the possibility that history teachers and student teachers may be over-reliant on it as a teaching approach. The use of PowerPoint is also problematic because it is sometimes used maladroitly, in a way that fails to sustain learners’ attention. When I give talks about the use of ICT, I routinely ask students if they have ever been severely bored by a PowerPoint presentation: usually, every hand goes up. There cannot be many people reading this who have not shared this experience. As far as I am aware, it is the only ICT application internationally recognised as a cause of death. A Google search on ‘Death by PowerPoint’ brought up 2.2 million hits; an image search of the same phrase, 2.8 million hits. So what is it about PowerPoint that evinces such responses and outcomes? How can history teachers respond intelligently to the issues arising out of the easy access to such presentation software?1