PowerPoint

The International Journal of Communication has just published a new section of essays on academic labor edited by Jonathan Sterne, and I'm really excited to have my work included in it. The essay is one I co-wrote with a friend I made at a Zionist summer camp in Canada in 1987, Ira Wagman. It's called "PowerPoint and Labor in the Mediated Classroom" (pdf). It draws on various sources, including my experience teaching a large lecture course (Intro to Media Studies) for many semesters and feeling like the PowerPoint component was taking up too much of my time and energy, even as I was always unsure I was using the slideware well enough. We tried to write our essay as both an assessment of PowerPoint, its functions and its value, and a set of practical suggestions not so much for how to use the software, but how to think about using it.