Rip Mix Feed Project: A look at Online Presentation Tools
For my rip mix feed project I decided to created an annotated list of some online presentation software. Quite often teachers are looking for an alternative program to show their students that they can use to create a presentation. The days of only using PowerPoint are long gone. My students and I generally prefer the idea of a web based program as it allows them to start a project at school, work on it at a friends house and finish it at home without the need to save their projects to a drive or worry about having the correct or compatible version of the software on all the computers they work on.
To put together this project I used a program called PowToon that I discovered when searching for a web based presentation software to create my video documentary. As I was searching, I tried out a number of different possibilities before committing to the PowToon. I used my previous search and dug a little deeper into some of the possibilities for online presentation tools to come up with a list of 6. I created a video presentation discussing some of the highlights of each program so that teachers and students can find a presentation tool to best fit their project needs. I am finding that more of my students are looking for ways to present their projects in ways that allows them to stand out from their peers, to be able to pull in different forms of media to be original and creative. Some students really love the idea of creative an informative video, or adding video clips in to their presentation so they can practice and do numerous takes in order to get their parts right. These are things that allow them to try things they never would in front of a classroom full of their peers. Having a presentation tool to pull together all the elements they would like to have in their project including video clips, music, voiceovers, photos etc allows students to be more creative and engage in their learning more. Only having one type of software available to them at school stifles their creativity and perhaps their learning as well as students are less engaged when they cannot complete a project in the way they desire.
As with any type of software there are certainly limitations. I have included some limitations of each type of software within my video. As with anything that is housed online there are always technical difficulties that can make using the software a problem. Slow internet connection or limited bandwidth make uploading videos at school, and sometimes at home, a problem. Access can also be a problem for some students. I think that we often assume that all students have internet at home, there is always a possibility that some students do not, in this case cloud based presentation software is a hindrance rather than being helpful.