Presentation Tools and Curating Your Personal Search Results: How to Stand Out Amongst the Crowd

When you are watching a presentation, what jumps out at you first? Is it the busy slides with too much writing? Is it the tacky transitions or the presenter's lack of knowledge about the subject? When giving a presentation, it is extremely important to create your visual aids and perfect your knowledge and speech in order for your audience to stay engaged in the information at hand. One of the best ways to ensure that your presentations are the best they can be is to use some of the newest and most improved presentation tools (other than the base version of PowerPoint). While the base version of PowerPoint (and even the similar Google Slides) has been the standard and accepted, many of the features are available on new sites are helpful in making presentations today better than they ever have been before. 

Office Mix (PowerPoint but improved)?:

While the base and older versions of PowerPoint are not the best in the market nowadays, Microsoft is working to improve the baseline program to include new features that will make creating presentations even easier and more productive than before. One of the ways they have done this is by creating Office Mix, a plugin for Microsoft PowerPoint that improves old and adds new features. These new features include adding videos and audio files, creating polls and quizzes inside of the slides, and much more. To access all of these amazing features, all you have to do is download the free plugin and you're all set! 

One of the most useful features added to PowerPoint by Office Mix is the recorded slides feature. With Office Mix, the user is able to record their presentation of each slide (with audio and video) so that their ideas and face can be seen and heard while the slides are shown. In addition to this, the slides are recorded and their corresponding presentation pieces are automatically recorded individually by the program, making it easy to rearrange the presentation and slides without having to edit the video recording of the slides as well. This is extremely useful for presenters of all backgrounds, as with this feature, one simple little slide error can be fixed without having to worry about re-recording all of the presentation again. In today's world, the general ability to record a presentation is so important so that in the event that a presentation has to be done virtually, it is still possible to be shown, so this feature is super useful to many different professional fields.

As a future nurse who aims to move into a management position, I am likely going to be giving presentations quite often and I think Office Mix might be a great fit for me. Being able to quiz the nurses I manage on their skills, gain feedback from PowerPoint polls, or even insert interactive medical simulators to demonstrate different skills with Office Mix will not only help me better manage my future nurses but help me become a better nurse myself. 

Microsoft Sway:

PowerPoint is not the only Microsoft presentation tool taking the world by storm, as Microsoft Sway has made its way onto the scene. Unlike PowerPoint, Microsoft Sway was created with the idea of Presenting presentations to an on-screen or virtual audience rather than in-person presentations (which is what PowerPoint was designed for). 

Sway is also based on a Storyline template, with each slide (or “card”) being added, making the interface seem more “free-flowing” and the presentation more cohesive overall. Though Sway does not offer as many options as PowerPoint when it comes to inserting other content within the slides, videos and pictures can be inputted directly from saved files onto the computer or sites like YouTube and Flickr. Furthermore, an already organized Sway presentation can be created from an existing document (such as a Word doc, PowerPoint, or PDF), making creating New ways to display already gathered information easier than ever.

Personally, I have never used Sway before but I think then I would enjoy the storyboard feel of the content created and the ease with which it can be created from different files that I already created. I also love the fact that Sway can be available to me on my computer and my mobile devices. As a busy college student and future nurse, who needs to be able to work on my projects whenever I get time on whatever device I have available, is super convenient to be able to finish my work in the most productive and time-sensitive manner possible. All that being said, I am looking forward to giving Sway a try in my future college classes and in my future nursing career.

Other Presentation Tools:

Microsoft is not the only creator of presentation tools, as many alternatives have been created in the past few years online. Some of the more popular alternatives include Google Slides, Canva, Haiku Deck, and Prezi. All four of these alternatives are available online for free (unlike Powerpoint) and have many of the same features as PowerPoint with some of their own unique spins. For example, Google Slides and Haiku Deck are likely the most similar to PowerPoint, as they both have many of the same features as the popular product, with Haiku Deck introducing even more available inserts and a different type of interface than PowerPoint. Prezi on the other hand uses more intense transitions and circular slides, while Canva provides great templates for a wide range of projects. All of these alternatives can be used for a wide variety of presentations, including those made for professional uses.

Alternatives like Slidebean, DocSend, and SalesHandy however, are even more geared towards business startups and professional users. DocSend and SalesHandy both incorporate live viewer counts of their decks, making it so business owners and professionals who are trying to increase their personal learning networks are able to monitor their growth through who is viewing their links and making sure those who they want to see these ideas are getting the information that they need. Though these sites are more geared towards professional use, anybody for the most part can use them and convert their options into their needs.

Personally, I have just begun using Canva in my school word and I absolutely love it. I am normally an avid Google Slides user, but I think have really enjoyed using Canva because of its somewhat similar interface, just with better, premade templates and the ability to customize my slides to my exact needs for whatever project I am using. I am highly considering using Canva for my Social Media Etiquette project, as I think it will allow me to not only make my presentation designed directly for the needs of this project but will allow me to create an attractive slide show that is appealing but not too overwhelming. 

Light, Bright, and Polite (Chapter 3):

While how you present yourself during an in person or virtual presentation can be important to grow in your digital following and professional network, your online presence is also especially important in presenting yourself in a way in which employers may like. In Chapter 3 of “Light, Bright, and Polite”, author Josh Ochs speaks on his research and experience with online presence and how that presents can be best curated and created to be most appealing to a professional audience.

Ochs interviewed Chrus Mygatt the president of Coldwell Banker resident Brook Ridge Colorado, Who echoed many of the same sentiments Ochs Has touched on so far throughout the book including the idea that employers and professionals do you look at future employees social media and Internet profiles in order to get a better sense of who they are hiring and whether or not they feel that they would be a good fit. with this research Osch goes on to give some tips on how to best create a positive online image of yourself. These tips include staying on top of your online footprint (by searching for yourself thoroughly and regularly in order to see what information has been posted about you), having someone else look at your online profiles and give you their honest opinion about the results, and only posting content that will give you a positive look to employers.

As a future nurse, remaining professional is extremely important. With lives in my hands, I want my patients to feel safe and know that I am a person who takes my job and life seriously and then I will not haphazardly do anything to hurt their loved ones while they’re in my care. Though my social media posts may not be directly correlated to how I care for a patient, I only ever want to put my best foot forward and show my patients that I am a person that they can trust and rely on based on my actions outside of work. 

Final Thoughts:

Overall, it is clear that PowerPoint is not the only presentation tool that is available to make the best presentations possible. With so many other options available, anyone who is interested in growing their professional learning network or experience with making presentations is able to easily with these tools!