Great Resources to Help Teachers Craft Beautiful Slide Presentations

June 15, 2014
Preparing slides that are both meaningful and visually appealing has gotten a lot easier thanks to technology. Whether it is for your classroom, a departmental talk, or a conference presentation, here are resources to help craft beautiful slides.


Slidebean 

Web presentation software that lets you create beautiful slide design in seconds. 

Veezzle 

When you are ready to start filling in your slides, this image search service helps you find royalty-free stock photos.

The Noun Project 

 For professionally-designed icons, this resource has thousands of icons for thousands of nouns.

Pic Collage 

 Put images and icons you've found into a collage with this mobile app for ideation or your presentation.

Flipagram 

 Or turn those images and icons into a slideshow with narration or music to liven up your presentation a notch.

IdeaStorm 

Before starting, you need a solid outline. Use this free iPad app for a visual brainstorming session.

Want more? Check out these collections

Online Presentation Tools 

This collection is curated by instructional technology facilitator Kristy Rocquin.

Tools & Apps for Inspiring Creativity within the Common Core 

This one is curated by educational technology research director Dr. Annette Kratcoski.


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This is How to Add Audio Narration to Your PowerPoint Presentations

May 30, 2014
For those of you who use PowerPoint to create presentations the  tips included in this post will definitely enhance your PowerPoint presentations. These tips are about how to record and add audio narration in your slide show. All the instructions mentioned below apply to PowerPoint 2010, for PowerPoint 2007 check out this resource from Emerging Ed Tech from whom I learned about these tips.

Here is how to record a narration for your slides as explained in Microsoft Office blog:

• When you record a narration, you run through the presentation and record each slide. You can pause and resume recording any time.
• Ensure your microphone is set up and in working order prior to recording your slide show.
• On the Slide Show tab, in the Set Up group, click Record Slide Show Button image.
• Select one of the following:
• Start Recording from Beginning
• Start Recording from Current Slide
• In the Record Slide Show dialog box, select the Narrations and laser pointer check box, and if appropriate, select or deselect the Slide and animation timings check box.
• Click Start Recording.

 TIP   To pause the narration, in the Recording shortcut menu, click Pause. And to resume your narration, click Resume Recording.

• To end your slide show recording, right click the slide, and then click End Show.
• The recorded slide show timings are automatically saved and the slide show appears in Slide Sorter view with timings beneath each slide

Here is a video tutorial created by Emerging EdTech that shows you how to record and add narration to your slide show.

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5 Good Web Tools to Create Interactive Lessons and Presentations

May 2, 2014
Below are some great web tools that you can use to create interactive lessons and presentations. These tools  allow you to breathe life into your teachable content through the use of images, videos, links to web pages and many more. Some of them even enable you to gather instant feedback from students through synchronous polls or text messaging.

Thanks to Jonathan Wylie who compiled and featured them in his popular presentation" The Best Free Web Tools for Engaging Students in 1:1 Classrooms "

1- ClassFlow

Designed specifically for teachers, ClassFlow is a revolutionary cloud-based application that makes lesson planning more efficient and lesson delivery more meaningful by connecting mobile devices such as tablets and laptops to SMART Boards, Promethean ActivBoards and other interactive classroom displays.

2- EverySlide

EverySlide is a great presentation tool that you can use with your students. Here is how it works:
Create a presentation in PowerPoint or Keynote, the same way you always did. Upload it to everyslide.com and press present. You will get a unique URL your students can use to join your slideshow using any device they happen to have. Now ask a question or run an instant poll.

After the presentation, you can review participants' interactions online or download their responses and answers as a spreadsheet.

3-  Swipe

Swipe is another wonderful web tool for creating interactive presentations. Here are some of the features it provides to its users:

• Drag & drop to upload, add web content, share a link and present live to any audience, anywhere.
• Your presentation links will never expire, unless you delete a presentation.
• Drag & Drop to rearrange your slides on any device, right in the browser.
• Easily include YouTube or Vimeo videos 
• All of your decks are private by default, you decide when and who to share it with.
• Easy to share, embed, and track how many people viewed it.

4- Movenote

Movenote is a video presentation tool that works both on the web and online and on portable devices.  Recording your presentations is easy and quick and everything is sharable online by email or social media with a simple link. Since everything is on a cloud server, you can access your videos practically anywhere and with the statistics tool you will be able to see who watched your video and when. Movenote videos can be watched on any device that supports video, no matter if they have movenote on them or not. You can use movenote directly from your Gmail and your Google Drive and on any desktop computer, laptop, iOS or Android device. 

5- Nearpod

Nearpod allows teachers to bring the classroom to life with interactive mobile presentations. Here is how it works:

• Create or download multimedia presentations
• Share your interactive lesson and control the students activity in real time
• Your students interact and submit responses through any mobile device or PC/MAC
• Monitor and measure student results on an individual and aggregate basis.

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4 Web Tools to Create Presentations without Installing Any Software

April 21, 2014
There are a slew of useful web  tools that teachers and students can use to create awesome presentations and slideshows without having to install any piece of software. I am sharing with you below my four favourite tools that I have been recommending to teachers and students:

1- Google Presentation

This is by all my means one of the best free presentation tool out there. Google Presentation is part of the productivity suite that comes with Google Drive. It allows you to integrated text, images, videos, import/export slides, customize the size of our slides, insert themes and many more.
To learn how to use Google Presentation read:" 9 Steps to Create A Good Presentation Using Google Presentation"


2- Haiku Deck

This is probably the best addition to the web-based presentation tools. Haiku was initially working only on mobile devices but a couple of days ago the web version was launched; however to use it you need to request an invitation.

3- Prezi

This is another great presentation tool that I have been using for awhile now. What I like the most about Prezi is the dynamism and interactivity it adds to the animation of the slides. Prezi slides can also be embedded in your classroom blog or website.

4- Zoho Presentation

Zoho Show is an online presentation tool that helps you to create and deliver presentations. You can now take your presentations wherever you go, apply new ideas instantly, review, edit, share and deliver presentations on the go. Watch this video to learn more about Zoho Presentation.

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