Substitutions for PowerPoint Presentations

Last week in class we discussed online presentation tools to use in the place of PowerPoint. Some of them included: Office Mix, Sway, Emaze, Haiku Deck, PowToon, and GoAnimate. Office Mix is pretty awesome because it is like Powerpoint, but you  can have slide recordings, quizzes, screen recordings, screenshot. It makes up for the the features that PowerPoint was missing. Sway is another Microsoft product. It is similar to google docs as it will let you invite other people to edit the one document at the same time. You can also embed a PowerPoint into it. With Emaze you can either create a new presentation, or even upload a PowerPoint and it will "Emazify" it.

This week in class we had a google hangout with Astronaut Abby. Abby is a first year college student that wants to be the first astronaut to go to Mars.  She told us how her mother was always very supportive when she started talking about this when she was just little girl. Of course, in the back of her mind she thought it was absurd. She continued to stay supportive and tell her to focus her pursuit of study in math and science. Not only her family, but her friends too , were always there when she needed it. Abby told us that if you think something is important enough you will find the time to do it. She is a part of MARS Generation, that is completely voluntarily run. There is a board of 4 people, then professionals in the space industry, social media industry, and a handful of others not in those industries that

volunteer their time. There are about 15-20 people working with them. Something very important she told us was that when you make a new connection, within those first 24 hours, you should contact them and send them a personalized message on linkedin, twitter, email or whatever social media account they give you. It is very important so that person remembers who you are and can possibly help you make other connections. If you wait too long it could be awkward if they do not remember who you are.

Prezi is a presentation tool that more people are starting to use as an alternative to PowerPoint. Instead of flipping to slides, it zooms over to the next part of your presentation. In the article for “A “how to” guide on using Prezi in an academic environment” , it reminds us that even though it is a great tool to use, you have to know how to use it. What’s good from presenting a Prezi is it immediately gets the audience's attention. When they realize they aren’t sitting through a boring PowerPoint they become intrigued. Your ideas are also allowed to be drawn out the way you would like. Whereas PowerPoint seems to almost force you where and how to put your important information. On the other

hand, because you are allowed to be more freely on Prezi, sometimes people tend to overdo it and make their audience dizzy with all the movements. By doing this they tend to forget about what the true meaning their presentation is about and just make it all about the movements. Some tips they give us are: Coherence matters, use the top-down full presentation view, take responsibility for the motion sickness, choose your visual theme early, and make sure you sign up with your academic email address.

Sway digital storytelling is a new part of Microsoft that is another substitution for PowerPoint. It has been made for today’s technology use with phones, tablets, laptops, etc. Unlike PowerPoint, the purpose of Sway is to show information easily, clearly, and quickly. They can also be easily shared and embedded. Sway is designed so that the presenter should follow a storyline. This flexibility allows for a more free flowing presentation. It does not allow for many adjustments, but because of this, it keeps the presentation

easy to follow. By doing this it also reduces the amount of time you have to spend on editing it. You can view  a Sway presentation either horizontally or vertically. Once you know how to work Sway, you can decide if it is the right choice for the type of presentation you are making.

I have just recently been acquainted with GoAnimate. It allows you to turn a script into an animated video. It offers backgrounds, music, templates, and characters; which allows someone who maybe isn't that artistic to successfully use it. You basically set up every scene and then it collectively adds up to a full video at the end. Both teachers and students can use it for lessons and presentations/projects. A good thing about the final video is that not just anyone can find your video online. It can also not be published publicly without a teacher approval. This will allow a fun new way to teach / learn a lesson in the classroom environment. I also believe it was very easy and enjoyable to make.