One of the most common types of assignments students will get in college and university is making presentations. Creating a presentation can often take a long time which leads to the need for presentation apps for students that are easy to use. Presenting an assignment or a project can take anywhere from 5 minutes to 30 minutes, and sometimes even longer. However, experts believe that it is in the first 30 seconds that your work makes an impression on the viewers.
That is why it is important to know of the best presentation apps out there that will let you present your research in the best possible way without having to spend hours.
Table of Contents
The Top 10 Presentation Software for Students
Prezi
If you wish to present your research in an interactive way, then Prezi is the best presentation app for this purpose. Unlike PowerPoint which lets you showcase projects in a linear way, this app is great for showing them more like mind maps that you can navigate. You can zoom in and out of certain parts of the project, making the viewers feel like they are traveling through the different parts of your project rather than reading static slides. While it may not have as many presentation templates as PowerPoint, this is still a great way to create a stunning presentation for free. It does have paid plans with more features, but the basic version will likely be enough for school projects.
Mentimeter
Sometimes, a student might want to engage the viewers in their project. For those times, Mentimeter is excellent. This PowerPoint alternative deserves to be in the 10 top software of this genre because it lets presenters create live polls and surveys, or ask questions to the audience members through its online interface. And the best part is that the viewers can actually take part in these polls and answer the questions in real-time. These features allow this tool to be perfect for a demonstration where you might want to have the audience involved.
Powtoon
If you like the design of Microsoft PowerPoint but want to add more animations and cartoons to your projects, then Powtoon might be right up your alley. This is one of those presentation tools that you can use to turn your presentations into infomercials if you want. You can add cartoons, animations, and infographics to help your projects be easier to understand. It is a web-based, free presentation tool that can help college-goers develop some excellent and intuitive presentations.
LibreOffice Impress
If you don’t have Microsoft Office and you cannot use PowerPoint to create presentations, you can look towards LibreOffice. This is an open-source office suite that has a very similar design to Microsoft’s offering. Its Impress software is what you can use to develop virtual demonstrations. It allows you to do pretty much everything that PowerPoint lets you do, albeit with fewer templates. Still, if you are okay with creating your own slide layouts then this is a very solid option for college-goers as well as business owners.
Zoho Show
This is another web-based software that lets you make presentations that are collaborative. You can broadcast your demonstrations to a large number of viewers in real-time and they can comment as well. These collaborative elements are why this a solid software to use if you wish to stay in your browser and don’t want to download a full office suite. You may not have as many designs for the slides as you would in other options, but there’s still enough here to not make you want any other program with a paid plan.
ClearSlide Presenter
ClearSlide Presenter is more of a business solution than one aimed at college-goers. However, it can be used to develop engaging content using simple and concise templates. If you wish to see some insights on your projects, then this is perfect for those needs. It offers useful tools to easily see how viewers are engaging with your content. This is a web-based option that provides a free trial but you have to use a paid plan for long-term use.
Piktochart
If you don’t like making heavily animated graphics and want something that allows for the creation of simple and clean transitions, then Piktochart is a good software to use. It has some effective infographics that you can easily edit to be your own and also some very nice visuals that let you develop a modern, minimalist demonstration. The main strength of this program lies in its ability to merge infographics with traditional presentations. You can use it for free or get the paid version. Its plans start from $29 per month, per user.
Slides
If you are a developer and want to share codes or designs with others, this is the top presentation program for you. You can use your phone to remotely control the program and also present your designs in real-time. It has a friendly overall design but has many features that you can use. While it may not be the right choice for everyday projects, it is definitely a strong option for developers and designers.
Canva
Canva is the perfect choice for those of you who want a huge variety of templates, graphics, and illustrations for presenting your projects. It has excellent web-based functionality, allowing users to drag and drop whatever they want onto a slide. You can customize the text, choose from a variety of modern fonts, find images of whatever you want to use, and even add your own media. Having the ability to do all of this free is what has made Canva such a huge name in the world of graphic design and also why college-goers and professionals alike should be using it.
RenderForest Presentation Maker
For creating explainer-style demonstrations, you should look into RenderForest. This is yet another web-based program that excels in whiteboard animations. You can use one of the many video backgrounds to grab the attention of your viewers. It works very well for engaging the viewers who are looking at your project. If videos are your thing when it comes to showcasing your research, this program can help you out.
Whether you use a Mac or Windows, there are a lot of options out there other than PowerPoint and Google Slides. Not everyone wants to use their Google account to log into programs and not everyone can afford to buy Microsoft 365. For those people, trying out some alternative programs to check if one of them works for their needs is a good idea. And when it comes to applications that can help young presenters show their works in a simple and effective way, these are some of the best in the business.
This article was written by Samantha Jones, a leading writing expert at papersowl.com. She has worked as a graphic designer for many years and also helped various companies in launching and marketing their products. These days, she is actively involved with educational institutions and offers lectures to students about the best graphic design practices.
Be the first to comment