I knew this would happen. In fact. I predicted it on my old blog. Google announced this week that they will be soon releasing “Presentations” – an online alternative to PowerPoint. But, they aren’t competing with Microsoft. Oh, no. They are bringing presentations to a “new level.”
Whatever. It’s free, it’s from Google, and it’s online. So, now educators who can’t afford Office, but are too bogged down to figure out OpenOffice – rejoice! It’s not in the Google labs section yet, so I can’t test it out to see how it works. But I’ll keep an eye out for it.
Zoho has offered a program like this for some time now, and I have even used it in some presentations. It’s kind of nice, but a little light on the features. Hopefully, Google will find a way to get some of those features added – like slide animations. The downside is that is sounds like they are going to use Java. Which is not horrible – it just means that it won’t work as smoothly as your average Web2.0 JavaScript based applications do.
Matt is currently an Instructional Designer II at Orbis Education and a Part-Time Instructor at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. Previously he worked as a Learning Innovation Researcher with the UT Arlington LINK Research Lab. His work focuses on learning theory, Heutagogy, and learner agency. Matt holds a Ph.D. in Learning Technologies from the University of North Texas, a Master of Education in Educational Technology from UT Brownsville, and a Bachelors of Science in Education from Baylor University. His research interests include instructional design, learning pathways, sociocultural theory, heutagogy, virtual reality, and open networked learning. He has a background in instructional design and teaching at both the secondary and university levels and has been an active blogger and conference presenter. He also enjoys networking and collaborative efforts involving faculty, students, administration, and anyone involved in the education process.
Woohoo! This means I might not have to learn the whole new user interface for Microsoft Office! (Oh, and Open Office rocks, by the way. My hubby got through his Tech Writing class using OO, and he had to do all kinds of fancy formatting.) Kat
(Edited by Matt Crosslin- original submission Wednesday, 18 April 2007, 09:40 AM)
Found a little bit more info on the official Google blog:
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/04/were-expecting.html
Guess we’ll see in the summer how this shakes down. I tried to look at the Tonic Systems website (the company that Google bought in order to use their presentation software), but they have already been ‘Googlized’:
http://www.tonicsystems.com/