This article grows out of my presentation at Computers and Writing 2003 at Purdue University. I would like to thank those who attended the session at that conference for their active participation in my interactive presentation. This article would not have taken its current shape without that participation, so—again—thanks to all of those who attended.

This article explores the various literacies in play when we and our students use PowerPoint, and other similar software packages, to create presentations.

There are some notes:

• The interface on the page that follows was created in Macromedia Flash. Though I discuss using Flash to create presentations in this article, this interface was designed from the start with web deployment in mind; this article is not the sort of presentation it discusses.
• This article has two navigational structures: 1) linear ("next" and "back" buttons), and 2) non-linear (the user can choose a path through it). Either will work, though I suggest reading the subsections within each main section in order.
• Finally, "Conventional Wisdom," as used throughout, is my perception of what teachers, others who use the application, and the application itself say about how a software application should be used.

Click "Enter" at right to explore the multiple literacies of writing in multimodal media.