Presentation

There are more swanky, elegant presentation tools out there but Google Slides is really easy to use, it integrates perfectly with all the other tools in the Google Educational Suite - and it probably does everything you need it to do.

It should be your go-to tool for working on presentations in class and its definitely your best option if you want to work collaboratively.

And with a bit of thought, you can use it for much more than just presentations - ask Alice Keeler

If you've ever used Photoshop or any of the Adobe suite of design apps, you'll expect this to be elegant, powerful and to create beautiful results. It does all of that!

It allows you to create short videos, web pages and presentations and graphics and then seamlessly publishes them - you can publish on a website but it really comes into its own if you use social media.

There is a free version and a premium version which has more features.

Prezi is my favoured tool for creating presentations, mainly because they don't have to be sequential. You can make them sequential, of course, but I often find that, in practice, I want to jump around, maybe missing bits out, maybe changing the order.

Prezi makes all that easy and the finished results are beautiful.

It takes a bit of practice to get used to it. I think it's worth the investment of time - but don't go for it if you've got a lesson in 10 minutes and you've got to get a presentation done!

Range of pricing plans from free to really quite expensive

I was in two minds about including Explee because it's the only tool that doesn't have a completely free plan. It does allow you a free trial but then you have to pay.

I did include it because I really like the results. You might think you might use it enough in your department to make it worthwhile

Think of it as a huge whiteboard. You can place text, images or video anywhere on the whiteboard and then you can go from one to the other either in sequence or by selecting an image.

I like it because of the great animation effects it has.

I have to admit I haven't used Microsoft Sway much but it seems fairly easy to use and quite quick to learn.

Its focus is on creating newsletters, presentations and communications.

Unusually for Microsoft, the results look quite well designed and elegant.

This is a really good looking tool. It enables you to create a wide range of presentations, infographics and images. It's quick to learn and fun to use. The site is bright and dynamic and I think pupils would like using it. It feels quite modern and lively.

There is a free version - which feels as if it has lots of functionality - and then a variety of pricing plans.

Well worth a look.

Screencastify is a great, free tool for creating screen-casts - where you capture what's happening on your screen as you narrate or explain.

It can be added to Chrome as an extension and you'll be up and running within minutes.

It has a good range of functions and integrates very well with your Google Drive.

You can pay quite a lot for screencast software. With this around, it's hard to see why you would.

This is a new tool being developed by Google. I expect it to develop quite a bit over the next few months - but it's already great.

At first it seems as if it would be most useful for geographers because it uses the full power of Google's mapping tools but, in fact, it has much more potential than that. There are some great examples on the website but you'd be able to think of many more, I'm sure.

Essentially, it allows you to plot points on a map and then to attach images, text and video to those points. The viewer whizzes around the globe from location to location and can view the attached media when they 'arrive'.

Google Sites

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