Maybe PowerPoint is soo powerful that the mounting of critiques creates some kind of karmic vacuum–PowerPoint skepticism met cosmically by a surge of colorfully-themed shows rushed to the doubter’s inbox. Two shows were sent my way in the past week. One was a self-evaluation for whether or not you (dear reader) would be a fit candidate for teaching courses online. (Slide One: Are you technically proficient with checking email?) The other involves staff encounters with media–how to talk to reporters. (Slide Fourteen: 1. Speak in short, concise sentences. There is no such thing as “off the record.”) Time for an analysis likening PowerPoint to The Blob. Seriously. —D Mueller —Where’d You Put My Laser Pointer, Bart? (Earthwide Moth)

This link features a great collection of links about PowerPoint.

Students at Seton Hill University are expected to use PowerPoint, as if it is as fundamental a communication tool as word processing or e-mail. I ask my students to blog their oral presentations, encouraging them to cite their online sources, and thereby creating a reference page for other students. Often their oral presentation blogs attract one or two comments in between the time they post it and the time they present it; that’s always fun.