No More Powerpoint Alternative Presentation Programs
About
Present.me allows you to create a presentation and record yourself explaining it. Your presentation and you will be displayed side by side. The presentation can be embeded into your website or blog. This presentation tool would be great for flipped or online classrooms as the students would be able to see the content and the teacher at the same time.
Pros & Cons
PowToon
PowToon is a great presentation resource which allows you to create videos with ease. This is a great alternative to PowerPoint since you can convey all of the same information in a much more entertaining way with music and animation. It's features include; creating a presentation from scratch or using a ready made template, you can insert text, images, audio (now featuring voice over), video, and transitions. There are a few subscription options to fit your needs. The Free version allows you to create 38 tunes with a 5 minute limit, a watermark will appear on the tunes, there is no privacy setting, no commercial rights, and no collaboration feature. The Pro subscription for $19/month gives you 77 tunes with 20 styles to choose from and up to 15 minute videos. It also has no watermark, allows for privacy settings, gives commercial rights, and allows for file download. The Business subscription for $59/month gives you everything in the Pro package plus 3rd party transfer rights, unlimited tunes, unlimited styles, HD videos up to 60 minutes in length or full HD videos up to 8 minutes.
PhotoPeach
PhotoPeach is a free web-based slideshow creation tool where you can share your pictures and see what others are sharing. The free version limits you to 30 photos per slideshow, only has a few music options, but allows you to load music from YouTube. The Premium version for $3/month allows unlimited photos, allows you to upload your own music, allows customized transitions, and allows you to burn your slide show to a DVD. The features included in PhotoPeach include adding text, Images, and audio (music). The app works with Facebook and Pisca to grab your photos. You also have the option of uploading photos. This would be a fun tool to use for end of the year slideshows, to introduce different places of study, or to showcase a special project in class.
About
Thinglink takes ordinary images and turns them into interactive learning with links to websites, videos, and documents. It's features include being able to add text, hyperlinks, videos, and documents all in one place. This is beneficial to teachers so students do not have to search or go different places to find the information. Thnglink offers a free version which allows 1 license including 1 group per teacher, 100 students per account, basic image tagging tool, basic image and video tool, students can log in with their Google accounts or teachers can sign them up without an email address. Thinglink offers quite a few safety features which are important when working with students. The program has a safe and secure classroom environment in which students can only see images created by other students, teachers, and images crated by Thinglink. It applies a maximum limit to safe search, and has the ability to unlist images from public. There is a purchase option for Education or Schools and Districts. These options provide up to 30 groups per teacher, 1000 students per account for the education account and unlimited students for school/district account. These accounts also offer advanced image and video tagging tools, full screen presentations, embed image channels, and more customization options for text, icons, etc.
Link to Thnglink Presentation
Link to Google Presentation
How to Video
Adobe Spark was formally known as Adobe Slate. This program is easy to understand and allows for creative, interactive presentations. The program is completely free when you create an adobe account. Students will love using this program as an alternative to PowerPoint.
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Create creative and interactive gliding presentations including text, images, hyperlinks, and videos.
- Choose from provided themes and layouts/grids or create from scratch.
- User friendly
- Adobe hosts presentations
- Mobile app
- Free!!!
Cons
- Cannot import PowerPoint or other presentations
- Cannot export to PowerPoint or other presentations
- Cannot embed other programs, can only add links to sites.
- Cannot add audio
- Does not allow for collaboration.
Adobe Spark in the Classroom
The End
I hope you will try out some of the new applications available to make your lessons more engaging and have students try them out as well.
Created by: Rebecca Van Pelt