Google Slides

Comments: I use it to create images, slides and presentations for my teacher training class. And I never lose my effort. It auto saves and I can access it from anywhere in the world. It's the best.

Pros: It's super easy to use. Can create all the stuff with slides. It's very user friendly. I've been using it for more than 5 years now. I create presentation slides and I create images too. Most of the time when I have something simple to create as an image, I just create it in a google slide and save it in picture format. It's super easy for me. I use it most of the times for my little one's school projects. And I am using the google slides for my weekly presentations with my study group in Teacher Training. We all share one Google Slide Presentation and add/ edit the slides as we need. And it's very easy to share as a link or can download it in pptx . Anyone of us can give the presentation as we all have contributed to one Presentation. We can add effects, different layouts, designs and almost everything to the slides to make them stand out. And I can access it from anywhere in the world. And of course work offline and work from my smart phone. That's a big plus.

Cons: I Actually I like everything about it. I never had an issue with it. It's been always super user friendly for me.

Comments: I love having my slides in the cloud so I can access them from anywhere, including on the app on my phone. And the collaboration is nice because I can share a presentation with a group after I've given it, and just give them the link to the entire thing.

Pros: I've given several presentations at local Meetups, as well as a bigger WordPress conference, and the people want SLIDES! Honestly, it's not my favorite way to give a presentation, but Google Slides makes it pretty easy for me to create something for them. It continues to get more and more powerful over the years, adding new features & abilities. There are quite a few nice templates to help you get started, with at least 10 different slide-types for different information. You can add text in a ton of different colors & fonts, insert images, embed YouTube videos, control if and when things play, add animations from slide-to-slide, as well as individual elements on each slide. And when you're finished, you can export them in a number of different ways. There's a "Notes" area that you can turn on or off, to help with speaker notes. It's printable, to help you practice the presentation. And actually presenting is quite a sinch, with easy navigation to move from slide to slide. And you obviously get the same sharing & collaboration features you get with all products in G Suite 🙌.

Cons: I found it a bit laborious when adding many animations. Perhaps I'm missing a way to change my default animation, but animating many elements could be made a little less time consuming. And I needed to download an extra app to use my phone as a remote control for my slides. It'd be really nice is this was included by Google.

Comments: Overall, slides deserves great reviews coming from Powerpoint/Keynote. In an environment where presentations are built through collaborative teams daily, it's light, intuitive solution provides a ton of value. Even as a data heavy organization, the challenges of numerical data and visualizations are not disruptive enough to reconsider previous presentation software.

Pros: Coming from hybrid Powerpoint/Keynote environment, we've found the following pros:
The collaboration/commenting/tagging feature is more intuitive and easier to access.
The biggest concern we had in adopting Slides was its ability to deliver offline. We've been pleasantly surprised that functionality is largely maintained when offline and syncs smoothly when back on the web.
Embedding web hosted assets such as YouTube videos, audio files and even large image files are easier to leverage as well as has much less impact on file size.

Cons: The largest challenge faced with Slides thus far has been the integration/ability to leverage Sheets in presentations. Previously, many of the capabilities of Excel such as formula management, chart/graph visualizations has been keys to presentations. That capability isn't there in Slides in to ways: 1) Sheets is still missing some feature parity with Excel. 2) Once you paste or embed a chart or graph in Slides from Sheets, both the data and the labels are difficult to manage.

Comments: Google Slides is incredibly easy to use and makes setting up a slideshow intuitive. I have had colleagues varying in age from 18 to well over 70 using Slides effectively. Many of our students also use the program for their in-class presentations, as it is more affordable than some of the other programs out there and is included for free with GMail accounts.

Pros: Slides possesses all of the things you would expect from a presentation application: there are transitions, sound effects, plenty of professional themes, templates, and easy controls to add images, photographs, or other media. Best of all, Google's standard Slides web program with GMail can be accessed anywhere and is free. Sharing is as simple as clicking "Share" and including any necessary e-mail addresses. Using a theme, I am able to pre-design all of my slides and simply fill in the necessary information. I have been able to use Slides as both a presenting software as well as a means through which to create information presentations to share information with my colleagues.

Cons: Using Slides does require GMail, and this may be restrictive for some users, but GMail is amongst the most popular and well-respected e-mail providers out there. In addition, Google Slides may not have the extensive transitions of other programs, but this is not missed, in my experience.

Comments: My overall experience has been very positive. I am always looking for ways to allow my students to show their creativity. Writing can get a little boring at times for many students, but with the offerings of Google Slides, even my most reluctant writers are excited to come up with new stories and ideas.

Pros: Google Slides allows so much opportunity for students to be creative. Essentially it is like PowerPoint, but it is much more user friendly and allows for so many more options. Students can add pictures, text, links, etc. I have had students write stories on this and they have a great time doing it. They add a few sentences on each slide with text and add pictures. The pictures can be changed to do special effects like spinning or disappearing. This allows students to do all sorts of fun and creative things. There are also opportunities for outside the box thinking. I have had my students use Google Slides to make a "Choose Your Own Adventure" story. They write a story and then at the end they create a link to two different endings. These endings are shown on different slides and the user can click on the ending that they choose. This has been a very fun experience!

Cons: There is a small learning curve with Google Slides. Students will need some practice with learning the different skills. Some of the capabilities are unknown until it is introduced to the student . So the teacher has to do some extra planning to make sure this is done correctly. But considering all that it has to offer, Google Slides is a must in the classroom for creative thinkers!