8 Attention Grabbing Tools to Present Your Ideas

Capture their attention!

It's the end of my first week on the Instructional Design Models Course. This week we've all been challenged to share an online presentation, analysing the history of learning theory and giving our own perspectives on our Personal Learning Philosophy. (If you are interested, you can check out my presentation here).

As interesting as it has been to learn about the other participants on my course and to pick up new insights in my own understanding of learning theory from their presentations, the biggest and most immediately practical aspect of my learning this week has to be: Presentation Software.

There are so many amazing packages and techniques out there for presenting your ideas to an online audience. How do you choose the right one for you? Here's a quick guide to some of my favourites and their features.

Google Slides

Easy to use, easy to share, easy to collaborate.

For anyone who has grown up in the microsoft generation and can craft a powerpoint, Google Slides is a doddle. Although lacking some of the features of Powerpoint, and with a narrower range of templates and options, it's features are clean and intuitive making it easy to use.

Slides can be created, edited or viewed from any device, although some features, such as animations, require a computer to edit.

The fact that is is a Google drive native app means it is easy to collaborate and share presentations securely, setting privileges, or by public link.

Online collaboration: Go collaborate at your own desk!

Screencast

Ok, this is a cheat in this list because it refers to a technique, not a tool.

Personally, I'm not a huge fan of screen casting - unless it's done RIGHT. Like any presentation, listening to someone read their slides aloud can be boring, frustrating and even down right irritating. It works best when any narration is supplemental to the visual.

There's also the listening to your own voice element... argh!

From what I've seen so far, Camtasia looks like an effective, if expensive tool for creating the best mix screencast and video based presentations. Movavi offers video editing with a range of transitions and effects as well as webcam screen capture, as a multimedia alternative.

I will be exploring screencasting further later in my course, as I have to screencast my final presentation.

Wix

Well, here I am, using Wix right now. Very Meta.

This was the first software tool I picked up and tried out from all of those I saw used in my course.

Why? Because it offers something for anyone, at any point in their presentation and webhosting journey. From beautiful pre designed templates and a huge range of free graphics, to the ability to customise just about everything.

This is my big find of the week!

Prezi

Think presentation slides meets mind map. Pretty transitions as you glide around the visual area to explore linked ideas in sequence, like a traditional presentation.

Except... The relationships between ideas is explored visually by the framing and transition between them

A really nice feature here though is that you can click and drag around in the space as you view the presentation - zooming in and out. This is great for when you want to mix text heavy content with visual content, leave options for your audience to explore in more or less detail, or reveal detail at the perfect moment.

The result? Incredibly visually engaging presentations.

It might take a big longer than other tools to get used to the interface and produce the professional look you want but its such an innovative platform, it will be worth the effort.

Prezi... not Pretzel, although they are both twisty, in out, over, under.

Adobe Spark

Adobe offers three products in its Spark range: Post, Page and Video.

Spark Post is a graphic editing tool for adding text and filters for a professional look.

Spark pages allows you to create what they call a "Glideshow" a scolling web based presentation, rich in graphics, where slides glide seemlessly from one to another as you scroll through the webpage.

Spark Video allows you to create proffesional looking videos with graphics, text, video editing and voiceover capabilities.

All of the Spark tools are available for free or as a premium, paid for option.

I will definitely be checking this one out... watch this space.

Articulate

Sigh.

The ultimate professional elearning design tool. Consider it the CAD of learning design.

Costly but powerful. I hope to take a free trial test drive in time.... watch this space!

Flipsnack

Essentially a PDF viewer which gives the feel of reading from a book or magazine. The pages are displayed as an open spread with nicely animated page turns. Good for magazine or catalogue type information that you want your user to browse visually. Perfect for materials designed for print layout that you want to also publish online.

Need More ideas?

Then let me introduce the joker in the pack...

Visme

Not only does Visme have it's own great visual presentation offering, it also acts as a hub for all things Visual. The team at Visme are dedicated to spreading the knowledge of great visual communication and, as well as their own set of tools, they have TONS of information, blogs, tutorials.

So I will leave you with just one example of what you can catch over on Visme. Very fittingly, it's an awesome infographic from their blog post on how to choose Presentation Software!

http://blog.visme.co/best-presentation-software/#xLr67uLx67ScGLOy.99