Evaluating Web 2.0 Presentation Tools

Educators, nowadays, have access to many different tools to showcase the content they are teaching. Just recently have I discovered presentation tools that were not named, Powerpoint or Keynote. In fact, there are a plethora of web based presentation tools available online...for FREE! Ones that allow us to share our presentations over the web with educators across the world. What better way is there to make a global impact in the educational community? With the help of these tools we can create, present, and share without leaving the comfort of our homes or classrooms! In this blog, I will evaluate 3 different presentation tools available on line and give feedback of the features and capabilities of each. Like many educators, most of my experience with presentation tools have come from Powerpoint. As I evaluate Zoho, Prezi, and Google Docs, I will often compare their features with the features available from Microsoft Powerpoint.

From my limited experience with Zoho, I have surprisingly gained a lot of knowledge about Web-based presentation tools. The more I "messed around" with creating a presentation the easier and more comfortable I felt. Although it is very similar to powerpoint, it seemed to offer a lot more background designs and features. It was very easy to use and I found myself experimenting with different backgrounds and tools. On their website they offered a tutorial video, but for some reason it did not work or load, so I'm not sure how much more knowledge I would have gained from watching it. The website if absolutely free, you just need to create an account with them. I used my existing google account information to log on to their website and utilize the presentation tool. Just like other popular presentation tools, Zoho is capable of embedding a wide variety of multi-media files into the presentation, including images, sounds, and videos.

Google sites or google docs was very appealing to me, mostly because my teacher website is a google site. Although I have never used the google doc presentation tool, it would probably be much easier to share the presentation on my website if I were to choose to showcase my project using google docs. Compared to Zoho, google sites, although free, did not come with all the bells and whistles. This site offered basic background features and, from what I gathered, there were no tutorials or training of any kind available. Due to the simplicity of the site, I could understand why a tutorial was not set up. I found it very easy to use and very similar to Microsoft Powerpoint. Sharing a presentation using google docs seems very easy, especially if you already have a free account and website.

Prezi, by far, is the most unique presentation tool I have had the experience to deal with. The concept map configuration is a brand new concept for me in terms of the way a presentation is set up. I am used to the slide by slide presentation offered by the tools mentioned above. Prezi offered a wonderful training video that allowed me to start creating right away. I found myself experimenting with different looks and configurations, and honestly, found it very easy to use. The grid allowed me to link different "slides" together and gave me full control of the design and look of the texts and images.

Right now it is a toss up between Prezi and Zoho for the presentation tool I will use for my course project. Although I feel very familiar with the set up of Zoho, there is something about learning a new way of presenting that is appealing to me. Prezi gives me that feeling. All three of the tools evaluate are easy to use and very reliable. The all work on the current browsers and operating system I use (Mac OS, Safari and Firefox). The best feature of these sites are there ability to share and collaborate via the internet. The accessibility from any place that has an internet connection makes it much more useful to create presentations. I often use a flash drive to transfer presentations from home to school, or at times, if I have enough memory on my account or my file is not too large, transfer files via email. With these web-based presentation tools, I no longer have to worry about having a file to big or enough memory on my flash drive. The fact that these tools can potentially make a global impact in the educational community is by far the best feature. Students and teachers can learn and benefit from presentations created anywhere in the world. Who knows? Your presentation may be educating students you will never get the chance to meet or know!