Unsupported Browser

Ellii may not function properly in Internet Explorer. We recommend using Google Chrome or Firefox instead.

Unsupported Browser

Ellii may not function properly in older browsers. We recommend updating yours to the latest version for the best experience.

14 Free Web Tools and Apps for Students to Present Their Knowledge

June 2, 2016

“If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.”

Albert Einstein

This year, get your language learners to present their learning in a multimedia slideshow. If this is one of their first presentations, keep it simple by providing your students with a general topic to explore, such as careers. Then give your learners the freedom to narrow their topic for their presentations (e.g., engineer or teacher).

Make sure students choose two or three areas to explore to ensure no topic is repeated. Provide students with a checklist of information to gather about the topic. For careers, students would need to find out salaries, duties, top hiring companies, needed skills, and required certifications. When your students complete their research, students should deliver an oral presentation alongside their multimedia slideshow.

Try one of ESL Library's new ready-made project-based learning modules. Your students will do a presentation as part of their group research project.

3 Presentation Forms for Language Learners

Here are three recommended multimedia slideshows tools and apps that you can introduce to your language learners as they prepare their presentations. For more ideas on how to help students develop public speaking and presentation skills, check out this post, 20+ Tips and Resources to Help Learners with Their Presentation Skills.

For language learners, shorter presentations are less intimidating. Have your learners deliver a TED Talk, Ignite, or Pecha Kucha style presentation.

TED Talks are anywhere from 3 to 23 minutes and are about innovation, passions, inventions, or incredible ideas. Get language learners to study TED Talks by presenters their age and analyze the content and delivery. After analyzing a few TED Talks, have students provide you a topic for their own TED Talk they will deliver in front of their peers. The following are links with tips, rubrics, and lesson plans to get your students started:

An Ignite is a 5 minute presentation style in which students design 20 slides that auto advance every 15 seconds. The idea is for students to create well designed presentations with little text. Find a lesson plan and tips here, Teaching Presentation Skills with Ignite.

A Pecha Kucha is a presentation style invented by architects Klein and Dytham in Japan. The presentation lasts 6 minutes and 40 seconds. Students design 20 slides with mostly visuals and very little text. Each slide auto advances every 20 seconds. Find lesson ideas here, Pecha Kucha in the Classroom: Tips and Strategies for Better Presentations.

Presentation Tools and Apps

Create multimedia slideshows with templates, transitions, and animations with free web tools, such as Flowvella, EduBuncee (iOS app), Sway, Google Slides (iOS/Android apps), Emaze, and Canva (iOS app). Recently, Google Slides integrated a question and answer feature to engage learners.

Slideshare, Haiku Deck (iOS app), and Slide.ly are general slide creation tools with templates and resorces to help students create visually stunning presentations.

Present.me, Prezi (iOS app), and Voicethread (iOS app) allow students to add voice and video narration to their slides.

Photopeach, students create a slide presentation with quizzes, images and add music.

Livebinders is an online web tool and free mobile app that looks like a digital school binder. Students can choose presentation mode when delivering their oral presentations. It has various tabs, so students can embed websites, pdfs, images, video, and more. Students can also edit each tab’s html to design the look of the tab. Livebinders works on multiple platforms and has an extension for students to easily collect their research from the web.

Who are your favorite presenters to motivate your language learners?

Not an Ellii member?

Get unlimited access to 1,000+ lessons and 3,000+ flashcards.

Sign Up

Comments (2)

Yara A.(Member)

thank you

Reply to Comment

Tanya Trusler(Author)

You're welcome, Yara! We hope some of these learning tools come in handy.

Leave a Comment

Log In to Comment Reply

or
Comment Reply as a Guest
  • **bold**_italics_> quote

    This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

    Thinking of joining Ellii?

    Complete this form to create an account and stay up to date on all the happenings here at Ellii.