Response to Absolute Powerpoint by Ian Parker

Lets rewind all the way back to the Caleb Crain article at the beginning of the semester when I commented on the experiment with Power Point:

In reference to the recent experiment concerning PowerPoint, in which the silent readers retained more information and were more entertained than those who were informed both visually and audibly, I would have to say I am not surprised. Personally, I have never understood the recent PowerPoint craze.  PowerPoint just seems like another good excuse on top of Google and SparkNotes for students to slack; to cut and paste and replace solid research with entertaining photos. Ironically, many teachers seem to praise it in the name of moving forward with education. When I am viewing a PowerPoint presentation I always feel as if I am getting random, disconnected phenomenon thrown at me rather than absorbing one cohesive lesson, and in the case that the PowerPoint was compiled by a student, this is usually not far from the truth. I would much prefer reading from a textbook where I would take the personal initiative in retaining the information rather than have it chopped up and fed to me in pieces via PowerPoint. Perhaps this has something to do with some sort of psychological conditioning of my brain to shut off and recline in a La-Z-Boy boy every time a screen pops up.

Now coming back to "Absolute Powerpoint" by Ian Parker I have to say my views have not changed that much. Although I definitely see the efficiency of the PowerPoint I still have to agree with the view that Parker seems to lean toward that our thoughts and actual level of thinking may be getting cut short by the bullet point format. However, since PowerPoint is obviously not going anywhere considering that Parker mentions in some social circles not arriving to a presentation with a PowerPoint is like forgetting your shoes, I think we must find a happy medium. We must take the responsibility to be prepared presenters, and not just mindlessly read word for word what is written on the slides. We have all had that teacher who insults us by reading what is right in front of our faces for an hour as if our eyeballs and brain were not able to communicate with each other. Then again, there are those teachers that can grab your attention with their knowledge to the point that you forget that there is a PowerPoint behind them. So in some ways this is just another one of those arguments in which the effectiveness all depends on the individual.     

Picking on Wiki

Embarrassingly enough, I did not understand how Wikipedia worked until I arrived at college and none of my professors would allow me to cite it. The fact that Wikipedia is a collaborative site subject to error was a detail that my high school teachers somehow managed to skip over. I have always used the site as my first resource when I am about to tackle a foreign topic. It is nice to have all of the neat little dates and categories laid out before me on one site. Upon beginning college I was told that I may use it as a resource, but that I could not cite it which still didn't make much sense to me. I didn't understand why Wikipedia was always getting picked on and treated like a lesser specimen. Now that I more fully understand the concept I am able to see the reasons behind its being labeled as not credible.

The back and forth between Wales from Wiki and Cauz from Britannica was pretty entertaining. I loved the musical metaphors that they both came up with to describe their dominance over the other. According to Cauz Wikipedia is what American Idol would be to Juilliard, and from Wales point of view Britannica is what easy listening would be to rock. It was also interesting to learn about the site's terminology such as "wikignome" and "wikitroll". Internet communities have always been something I have never really understood, but they are interesting to observe.

Acts 3-5 Pygmalion

While reading the first half of the play I was very much reminded of the movie adaptation. However, after reading on, the play began to take its own unique form apart from my previous knowledge. In fact, I do not recall any of the scenes as having been in the movie. To me, the most intriguing part of the second half of the play was the scene in which Eliza is getting back at Higgins for his insensitivity. It is interesting to note the tactics she uses to upset him. There is something timeless and childlike about it. She takes his friend, Colonel Pickering, and contrasts him to Higgins. She describes Pickering as the one who truly educated her while Higgins simply taught her the mechanics of language. She says that Pickering is the real gentleman that makes her feel like a real lady. Higgins comeback was unexpected for me. He said that what really distinguishes a man or woman in society is whether or not they treat everyone the same, like he does. The last conversation between Higgins and Liza is truly entertaining. Bernard Shaw certainly had the personalities of his characters well thought out and must have been acquainted with similar personalities at some point in his life. The sequel, I thought, was very comical in that it delved into great detail about the future of the characters as well as some very particular reasons why Liza could never have ended up with Higgins. 

Acts I&II Pygmalion

I am a bit embarrassed to admit that I never knew that Pygmalion and My Fair Lady were essentially the same thing. I have watched the musical My Fair Lady several times and heard the play Pygmalion brought up in discussions and never connected the two. That kind of thing is pretty common though. Someone will write something based on another authors work and it becomes well known to the general population, overshadowing the original work. The dazzling Audrey Hepburn can probably take a lot of the credit for this particular situation. I remember watching the movie when I was very young and singing along with the catchy rhymes like "the rain in Spain falls mainly in the plain". The contrast of the willful and unlearned Liza to the gentlemanly manner of Higgins was always something that entertained me. One of the scenes that stood out to me was when Liza was at the horse race and starts getting all worked up and yelling obscenities at the horse they had bet on- something along the lines of "move your bloomin' arse!". Her character was endearing because even though she may have transformed into a lady, in the end she never lost her spunk. Another quote I recall is when she was trying to make lady like conversation and made a comment like "gin was mothers milk to her". I can only guess that lines like this must have come directly from Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion. So far the play is very entertaining. I find myself paying close attention to the way in which it is written since I do not read many plays. It is interesting to note the little details that playwrights add in so that the play can be directed in the manner in which the writer imagined.