What is out there for presentation tools?
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Death by PowerPoint - It's report/project season and that means many students will be dragging their feet up to the front of the classroom with 15- 50 slides of solid text in PowerPoint which they will read in a monotone voice while seemingly inspecting their shoelaces. Those awake at the end manage some applause and the next student takes his turn at drudgery. Repeat ad infinitum.
While there are certainly exceptions, project presentations via PowerPoint can be brutal for both students and teachers who have to sit through five sections of presentations for a couple of days. As the graphic below shows, this problem is on an upward trend.
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| Figure 1: PowerPoint Deaths from Boredom by Year |
So this begs the question: What else is out there?
Here are two browser based options and two mobile app based options that allow students to spice up their presentations without making the task of creating them overwhelming.
Prezi
Prezi has been around for quite awhile now but is still a great tool for an easy alternative to PowerPoint. It is browser based and thus works anywhere that has an internet connection. It is free but students and teachers will need to create an account. It is generally intuitive and students/staff well-versed with PowerPoint will have no trouble. You can even import your old PowerPoints and start spicing them up. Check out the basics (click the link below the logo):
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| Getting Started with Prezi |
PowToon
PowToon is a newer player in the presentation market but has caught on with schools due to its focus on animation. Unlike Prezi or PowerPoint which focus on text plus "other stuff", PowToon focuses on the "other stuff" first. It provides dynamic moving characters and sounds for actions. This makes the presentation seem more fluid and lively. Just like Prezi, it is browser based and very easy to use. Kids can import pictures or videos and the animations are selected from templates. Finally, my favorite element is that they have allowed Google Drive integration so projects can be saved and shared in Drive greatly adding to the flexibility of this tool. Check out the basics (click the link below the logo):
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| Getting Started with PowToon |
iMovie
iMovie is an option depending on which lab you're using or if kids have the software at home. The templates make it extremely easy to make a video based presentation. I've found this to be a powerful tool for students too afraid to speak in front of the class. It requires a little more know-how, but can make a great option for certain projects or students requiring alternative options due to individualized plans. iMovie goes "in between" here (and isn't counted in my total) since it is available on certain iPads or desktops/laptops.
Flowboard (Flipboard) & HaikuDeck
Looking for something simple? These two have got you covered. These two apps focus on form over function. Thus they can be limited in what they do, but will always give you awesome looking presentations. They are both simple enough for young students to create presentations once they have the account sign-in thing figured out. (Hint: You may want to create a "class profile" and let students use the some login in the elementary). 
Both Flowboard and HaikuDeck offer stunning images for backgrounds behind the text. They also offer image or video imports which covers the lion's share of features most students use in PowerPoint. Flowboard has more layout and customization options while HaikuDeck is better suited to younger children. The apps are only mobile based so kids or teachers have to use iPads and will use Reflector to play their presentations on screen.
Check out the following demo I did for both of these apps. As always, if you use any of these apps in class, please share how you use them with your students.
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