Tools for Powering up your Presentations

Creating presentations for professional learning requires an inventory of tools that are easy to use and engaging for participants. Below is a list of my favorite tools, what they do and how they can be used.

Post-it Plus- Post-it are a staple supply at educational workshops. They are used for brainstorming, collaboration, reflection and classifying. The problem with Post-its is they end up in the trash after
the workshop and participants can't reflect or reference the work done after the fact. Post-it plus allows you to snap a picture of a collection of notes and save, share and organize them for reference later.

Soundboard for Super Smash Bros. App
Smashing Extravaganza.

Soundboard Studio Lite- I like using rotations in training and Soundboard Lite allows me to create buttons to short play music riffs for transition times between stations. It is also great for adding fun sound affects to create aesthetic appeal to workshops.





Nearpod-this is one of my favorite apps for presenting. They keep adding fantastic new features to

the paid version of the app. My most recent favorite is the collaboration tool. This feature creates a digital collaboration board similar to Padlet (another tool that I love). The benefit of having this packaged within Nearpod is that participants do not need to leave the presentation to engage in a collaborative activity.


Decide Now- This is a paid app but can improve efficiency when you need to make random selections during a workshop. The fully customizable spinning wheel allow you to add names, numbers, and other data sets for selection purposes


Padlet- One of the fastest, device agnostic tools for brainstorming, reflecting, collaborating and checking understanding. Another advantage is it can be used during a training or asynchronously. Like Post-it Plus, it enables participants to access learning beyond the workshop. Participants can add notes that include text, images, files, links and videos. Free, Feature-filled and Fun!

Canva- This is my go to graphic design tool that I app smash with anything I want to add attractiveness to with little fuss. I use Canva to create slides for Nearpod, website graphics, posters, social media posts and banners. Export graphics as PNG, JPG and PDF.