Beyond PowerPoint

While faculty have probably noticed an expansion of Apple products around the university, you may not be aware of Apple's answer to PowerPoint:  Keynote. Included as part of the iWorks suite, Keynote brings Apple's typical ease of use to presentations and can be used to create and run presentations. Keynote has several easy to use "Power Point-like" features that allow you get started quickly:  professional design themes, basic animation, and effects. The application also has strong tools for creating graphs and charts. Keynote also utilizes the Alpha Tool, which gives users the ability to crop or remove areas of an image.

Keynote is available for use on Mac laptops, phones, and tablets. However, Keynote presentations can also be saved to the cloud, so that you can access them on other devices that are connected to the Internet. Keynote can also be saved in various common file formats, including Power Point, QuickTime, PDF, and can even be uploaded directly to YouTube for future viewing. For more information about Keynote, visit  Apple's Keynote site.

PDF portfolio is a useful option for presenting. With PDF Portfolio, you can take presentations, documents, images, videos, and other media they you have created or gathered from other sources, and combine them into one, uniform presentation that is ideal for fluid presenting and sharing.  

Using PDF files involves creating a slide show presentation in another program, saving the presentation as a PDF, and then opening and presenting them as PDF. The benefits of using PDF are portability, compatibility, and security. Virtually all computers, tables, and smart phones can display PDFs. As a result, if you save your slides as a PDF you can easily access it and present it using a portable device. With PDF, you need not worry about your slides presenting properly. Since all fonts are embedded in the file, the slide will appear just as it did when you originally created and saved it.  Furthermore, PDF security features can prevent a file from being altered and limit who can access it. For more information, including a video demo, take a look at Adobe's PDF Portfolio site. 

Prezi is one of the more unique presentation tools. It offers a much more free form way of presenting. Instead of laying out each slide separately, you create your presentation on a canvas that can be navigated in virtually any order. As a result, the presentation can be run organically, in response to the flow of the classroom discussion and focused on subject areas that require more attention.

Prezi offers a free education account that provides more features and storage space. Prezi also enables users to easily import PowerPoint presentations. So you can take existing PowerPoint slides and use Prezi to organize and present. Portable Prezi is another notable feature. It posts the presentation online and allows you to share it with students. When considering whether to utilize Prezi, you should bear in mind that because it offers a novel way of running a presentation, there is also a learning curve involved in getting started. Get started at Prezi.com.

Google Presentation is an easy way to create and present, all online. It allows you to create a new slide show or import a PowerPoint presentation. The interface is very simple and easy to use. Google Presentation creates files that can easily be shared in various file formats. It is also easy to import other formats and is very PowerPoint friendly.  However, Google Presentation has fairly limited features and no way of making charts. As a result, is not the best match for faculty interested in creating more than a basic slide show. Google Presentation is accessible for users with a Gmail account.

SlideRocket is a comprehensive online presentation app that incorporates virtually all of the features offered by PowerPoint. Additional useful features include a library from which you can quickly access items you use often, such as slides, images, videos, audio files, and flash animations. SlideRocket also allows for the creation of full featured charts and lets you link to Google spreadsheets. Take a tour at SlideRocket's official site.