Tools like Microsoft PowerPoint negatively impact student learning

Misleading title -- the article talks about ANIMATIONS in presentations ... and frankly neither the study methodology nor the results are given in enough detail to make any conclusions.

Lectures can be poorly designed in any medium.

I'm not in love with MS powerpoint but,

"It's not the tool. It's the people who use it"

And here's the original research document. http://isedj.org/7/82/Mahar.j.txt

And one more thing. The article provides very poor referencing. I couldn't find the real source by following the link they have given as the source. In contrast following article is better IMHO.

http://www.hg2s.com/blog/2009/06/11/the-danger-of-gratuitous...

They've provided very little evidence for their conclusion.

For a far better criticism of powerpoint check out Edward Tufte: http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=0...

The kind of animation described here imposes a process on the learners brain. If it's too demanding, it leaves less room for the learning process. The art of teaching is not to force a process in the learners brain but to motivate and support it.

A similar complaint about misusing presentation bling was made in Communications of the ACM recently by the inventor of PowerPoint: http://www.robertgaskins.com/pages/gaskins-ppt-at-20-cacm-vo...