Extended Uses of PowerPoint
PowerPoint can be used as a free-form
photo album, an easy way to incorportate text images and diagrams for newsletters, or even
graphic novel formats. It can be used for story boarding, for digital lab-books, for collaborative
communication where one can make annotations directly on the slides. It is basically a digital
whiteboard, where spatial precision is high and content is flexible. I've put some of my examples
of alternate uses of PowerPoint in this page, but there are many more.
10.2009
One of most typical (and perhaps one of my favorite)
uses of powerpoint is as a lab book. Classic lab books
are those grid composition notebooks (yeah, I have one of those too). But I use powerpoint to
keep track of the progress of my analyses on a topic. I've found that for me, the value of these is not
so much in the short term, but rather for my future self. I can't believe how many times I've gone back
to powerpoints for different projects to jog my memory of what I had done and figured out already.
I also train all my undergrad research assistants to make ppt labbooks to summarize their work, so that
when we meet they can show me their progress and they have produced a tangible record. It's a system that definitely works!
10.2009
When you need to consolidate a lot of visual and textual information, e.g. a large collection of published papers on a topic, its easy to use powerpoint as an aggregateor. I paste in the critical figures and make notes on the slide with my summaries and questions. In slide sorter view I can re-arrange each paper, or print them out and see all the papers i've summarized in front of me at one time. To be frank though, I haven't used this system enough to know if it's the optimal way to initially consolidate literature.
10.2008
When setting up serious AV equipment, which wires do you need? Really, you need a diagram to even ask the question! I made these slides and then saved the slide show as a jpg, so I could email this along with my question of which cables I needed.
7.2007
Photo Album, with appropriate diagrams, arrows, and text descriptors.
6.2007
Optimal Spatial Layout finding, with minimal lifting.
1.2007
Graphic Novel format, inspired after reading the 9-11 report in graphic novel format.
