When I pay $500 on a single class I feel that I have the right to judge and critique the prof, especially when I have to sit through a 3 hour lecture. We deserve to be entertained. IĀ immediately come to the conclusion that the lecture, presentation, keynote speech, or pitch will not beĀ worth my time the second that I seeĀ Microsoft PowerPoint opening up and bullet point notes on the overhead projector…
In this day and age it’s not fair to make your audience sit through dull, text heavy presentations. Attentions spans are only getting shorter from here – it’s time to step our presentation game up. I found this article on MakeUseOf.com that offered insight on The 4 Best Free Alternatives To Microsoft PowerPoint but I’m not including the 4th one, (Google Docs Presentation) because it’s actually worse than PowerPoint. Yes that is in fact possible.
1. SlideRocket
SlideRocket is a higher end model of a collaborative, web-based presentation application. While thisĀ isĀ a premium app, they do offer a nice free option, which gives you 250 MB of storage (15 MB file size), up to 5 multi-seat accounts, shared folders, items, and libraries, and the ability to import from Powerpoint and export to PDF.
It has a beautiful user interface and a lot of great features, including the ability to add themes, layouts, shapes, charts, tables, pictures, audio, video, and Flash animations. You can also integrate content from sites like Flickr and YouTube, as well as utilize plug-ins.
To get a glimpse of SlideRocket, check out this short video:
<iframe width=”560″ height=”315″ src=”http://www.youtube.com/embed/nija_9mLTPE” frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen></iframe>
2. 280 Slides
280 Slides is another very easy to use presentation creation app. 280 Slides offers a host of great features, like the ability to upload your existing PowerPoint presentations and import them into 280 Slides, preventing you from having to start over.
Other great features include autosave and recovery, storing presentations online, downloading them in the PowerPoint 2007 format, adding photos and movies from Flickr and YouTube, posting toĀ SlideShareĀ and embedding, and running them straight from your browser.
3. (My Favourite) PreziĀ
/prezi, if you havenāt heard of it by now, is one of those really cool presentation applications that is very different from how PowerPoint and the rest function. What makes it significantly different is the fact that it doesnāt invoke the traditional slide-by-slide rules of a normal presentation. Rather, each presentation you create is a flowing, motion-based depiction filled with your creativity.
<iframe width=”560″ height=”315″ src=”http://www.youtube.com/embed/pxhqD0hNx4Q” frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen></iframe>
