Hook 'Em

There are so many ways to make a presentation more engaging and interactive, and yet people in board rooms and classrooms everywhere are experiencing a slow and boring "death by PowerPoint".

1. Peardeck

Peardeck is an interactive tool to create or convert existing slideshows into engage & interactive presentations, and since Peardeck is applied as a google slides add-on, building interactive slides is easy. They even have pre-made, editable templates available. The teacher dashboard makes Peardeck an obvious choice for engagement because it gives the teacher control to see how each participant is engaging, to anonymously display participant answers, & to ask interactive questions on the fly. One unique feature of Peardeck is that, at the end of each session, Peardeck creates a google document called "takeaways". It includes each slide, as well as the participants response, and is shared with both the student & the teacher.

2. Mentimeter

If you're as old as me, then you remember those expensive clickers professors would make you buy in college. (If this is lost on you, good for you.) Well, Menitmeter can do all that and more, substituting the archaic clicker for a smart phone. This is another interactive slideshow tool, and is wonderful for collecting polls, live surveys, and other data. Similar to Peardeck, Mentimeter offers free and paid versions, but even the free version is definitely worth a look.

3. Emaze

Emaze and Canva are both similar presentation and design tools, great for creating all kind of content. Emaze is an easy tool for students to learn, and although their logo will be prominent on whatever you create, Emaze helps you produce engaging content.

4. Canva

Although presentations on Canva are not necessarily interactive, you can use Canva to create more visually appealing and engaging slides and presentations. Canva is a graphic design platform that makes communicating a lot of information in a concise and graphic way easy. Their update to Canva 2.0 added fonts, graphics, and the capability to add animations to your presentations and graphics. From slideshows to infographics, from digital to print materials, Canva is my go-to creative platform. (Note: This and most of my graphic blogs were created using Canva.)