Get your presentation on point
Creating presentations can raise anxiety levels faster than realizing you forgot a deadline. Gathering, organizing and presenting information in a concise, engaging manner, is time-consuming to say the least, but we’ve all been there. Here are a few new tools that can taking your presentations from humdrum to noteworthy.
The power of video:
Have you ever tried to walk someone through the process of using a new app or tool? Using images can be helpful, but video is even better. Most people respond better to be shown the actual steps and one of the most common ways to do this is the screencast. Think of it as a screenshot in motion. It’s basically a way to capture whatever you’re doing on your own computer, so you can share it with others. Recordit is a much faster way to create screencasts, plus it offers support for GIFs and Twitter. To use it, just head to the site and download the program. When you’re ready to start recording, you’ll set the area on the screen you want to record and press the “record” icon. It’s really that simple.
Engaging animations:
Another great tool to make your presentations more engaging: GifGrabber. GifGrabber is a free Mac app that helps you make animated GIFs; no complicated animation knowledge necessary. To use, simply move the “capture” square over the video you’d like to capture, starting and stopping it any where you want. This allows you to make crops/splices without a separate program and when you you’re done, save it to your computer, or upload it with one click. Simple.
Creative templates:
The last tool that can keep your audience engaged, is Slides Carnival. Slides Carnival is a comprehensive template resource for Google Slide Shows. From playful, colorful, backgrounds to mind maps, scorecards, and key performance templates, Slides Carnival has it all. If you use PowerPoint instead, you can download your Google presentation as a PowerPoint file and continue working on your computer. You can also export your slides to other formats: PDF, JPG, PNG, and more. This allows you to use these fun, engaging templates, regardless of what your preferred presentation platform.
#Presentations
Jennifer Walpole is a Senior Staff Writer at The American Genius and holds a Master's degree in English from the University of Oklahoma. She is a science fiction fanatic and enjoys writing way more than she should. She dreams of being a screenwriter and seeing her work on the big screen in Hollywood one day.

Amber Esparza
August 5, 2015 at 11:20 am
Love the article! I plan to try some of these tips right away! Thank you!