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I also wish to emphasise that I am not advocating its compulsory adoption under all circumstances and by all staff.

It will not discuss the nature of the academic content since that will be discipline-specific and must remain an issue for the academic staff alone. This paper provides an overview of both the benefits and the problems associated with its use and suggests some key pedagogical decisions that should be considered when adopting its use.

It particularly includes poorly thought-out use in lectures where it becomes simply an alternative form of presenting largely text-based material that used to be delivered using ‘old technology’ (chalk and talk): this makes little use of the new and flexible opportunities offered by use of PowerPoint within the educational field. This has resulted in, often questionable, practices within educational contexts. Part of the difficulty in objectively evaluating the use of PowerPoint in education stems directly from one of its most favourable features, namely the ease of use and the relatively shallow learning-curve required to achieve basic-level usage. This paper examines some of the key issues that must be considered at both an individual and an organisational level. It is my contention that it is a valuable aid to presentation providing that its use has been carefully considered in terms of pedagogy. I have been using PowerPoint to deliver all appropriate classes since 1996, as well as delivering staff development sessions on both the programme and the pedagogy of its use. One of the major problems is that its current use is frequently limited to an information transmission mode, often with excessive content, a usage that obscures the wider potential for diverse professional and pedagogically-sound presentations. However, its use is far from controversial in this educational context and opinions as to its use range from highly supportive to significantly negative ( CitationSzabo & Hastings, 2000 Lowry, 2003). PowerPoint (© Microsoft Corp.) is a widely used presentation programme that originated in the world of business but has now become commonplace in the world of educational technology.

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