As much as I enjoy bashing PowerPoint (and the abuses related to it's over use/abuse) the Newswise article, " Regular Computer Use for Work – but Not Play – Aids Student Test Performance offers a more rational approach to associating learning with academic efforts rather than games and multimedia presentations"
"...the study found that use of computers in school to create presentations was negatively associated with writing test scores. According to the researchers, this negative relationship may result from students spending less time writing during class time and more time creating and revising multimedia projects that contain relatively small amounts of written work. In essence, time spent creating presentations may detract from time available during class to develop students' writing skills."
Of course, there are compelling yet perhaps less scientific commentaries on PowePoint abuse...if you're interested, check these out:
Hmmm, I detect a pattern here.
Wow, that rant felt good!
(Next slide, please)