Help me create a great online presentation.

April 15, 2009 1:12 PM

I am looking for recommendations for methodologies for the creation of simple, clean, somewhat multimedia online presentations as an alternative to PowerPoint.

I am in a hybrid resident/online masters program. This semester, I am in an online course (Organizational Theory) with geographically dispersed students. In this course, a group project is required.

My group is made up of 4 people in various parts of the country. Our assignment is to prepare a presentation, combining written and multimedia elements, on the Walt Disney company from the standpoint of corporate culture and by viewing the company through various metaphors (brain, political system, etc.)

We have a great deal of latitude in the text/multimedia mix, and can use PowerPoint if we'd like. However, we are encouraged to use other tools instead of PP if we're able, such as HTML/CSS.

I'm a pretty good hand-coder of flat HTML/CSS, and think that going this route offers a much more elegant set of tools than PP, especially with the multimedia integration. However, I really don't want to spend hours messing with designs or searching for the right template. A simple, clean, "PP Replacement" type solution is what I'm looking for.

My hope is that there are folks here who can point me in the direction of a solid template for something like this, or who who can point to existing presentations along these lines that are available online. Such a sample presentation would also be an effective tool in showing my other group members what direction we should be heading.

Any ideas?

posted by Roach to computers & internet (12 comments total)

I made a very simple, maybe stupid-simple template for this that I use when I'm either giving talks that have a lot of links. You can see it here, short boring example talk here. You need to know some HTML, but not a ton. With a little extra work you can do a cool printable/slides (example - scroll to the bottom and click "printable") thing which is helpful if you need handouts or a version for people with low vision.
posted by jessamyn at 1:28 PM on April 15 [4 favorites has favorites]

I really like SlideRocket.
posted by roomwithaview at 1:31 PM on April 15

Edward R. Tufte has written a lot about the corrupting influence of PowerPoint.
posted by KokuRyu at 1:52 PM on April 15

I just encountered Prezi this week, and it blew me away. Watch some the examples in the showcase to get the sense for how it works and looks.
posted by Milkman Dan at 2:12 PM on April 15 [1 favorite has favorites]

How about tools that let you augment Powerpoint?

I really like Adobe Presenter, which lets you add an audio track, then convert the whole thing to Flash. It's very easy to use, and avoids the "corrupting influence" mentioned above. There's another very similar tool, called Articulate Presenter, although I haven't worked with it myself.

Here's a sample.
posted by me & my monkey at 2:14 PM on April 15 [1 favorite has favorites]

These are all great suggestions so far, thanks!

Part of the issue here is that the presentation will NOT be accompanied by a presenter. It needs to be a standalone finished product, with no accompanying live audio commentary or Q&A, and it will be submitted as a complete assignment to the professor over the Internet.

Your template is looking very promising, Jessamyn!
posted by Roach at 2:31 PM on April 15

The tools I mentioned let you create standalone finished presentations. You record the audio track, then publish the whole thing to Flash.
posted by me & my monkey at 4:36 PM on April 15

This S5 that Jessamyn recommends if your HTML needs to be standards-compliant? It's very, very good. Easy to edit, you can put in notes for a presenter-less version, CSS handles all your layout and JavaScript all your slideyness, it's a sweet deal. And it is standards-compliant. I am a very happy user.
posted by eritain at 5:08 PM on April 15

slideshare hosts your presentation, and is pretty darn fast to load. Might be a good solution for submitting.
posted by tamarack at 6:07 PM on April 15

I'd blend it, use power point, the web and other various applications which all show up on your computer's screen, along with other input from various applications the others involved in the project submit.

I actually do this a lot and use Snapz to put it all together into a movie I can edit and dub with audio input as I see fit.

Snapz is pretty cool because it allows you to record everything on the screen so you can switch from portions of a Power Point presentation to something on the web and other sources contributed by other members of your team. As long as it is on your machine's screen you can record it. Then just take any movie editor and chop, slice or edit any way you like. You get all of the applications doing, or displaying, what you like and record what it is doing or displaying in real time.
posted by bkeene12 at 8:34 PM on April 15

You might want to consider Google Docs as well. It allows real-time collaboration, embedding of web content and videos. It's not the sexiest or most full-featured of the bunch, but it could be the easiest and fastest way to get this done.
posted by ad_hominem at 11:29 PM on April 15

Thanks for all the great suggestions.
posted by Roach at 9:11 AM on April 16