Haiku Deck: Revolutionize Your Presentations

Despite drastic changes over the years, many educators still use presentation software, such as PowerPoint, for a variety of reasons. Such presentations in class reinforce content delivered orally, serve as supplemental material, and scaffold learning. Turning these types of presentations into videos serves the same purpose for flipped classrooms. Additionally, whether delivered in class or submitted as videos, presentations are also commonly used as assignments for students. Presentations are great and not going away any time soon; however, it might be time for an update to their format. I previously suggested Prezi as an alternative, and another great option is Haiku Deck, whose tagline is “presentations that inspire.”

Haiku Deck is free and signing up is simple. Enter your email and choose a password to get started. The first page you see has a simple deck that explains the basics, or you can skip it and start creating your own right away. Like PowerPoint, there are some slide templates, fonts, themes, and layout options to choose from as well as a place to put your notes, but the image selection is what I found most impressive. Haiku Deck lets you choose what word from each slide you most want to convey with an image and then generates a perfectly matched gallery of pictures to choose from. The resulting presentation is gorgeous, and you do not have to worry about any copyright issues, but if you have an image handy that you would rather use, you can do that, too.

Once the presentation is finished, you can present directly from the website, opt to share it one of a wide variety of ways, or export it as a .pdf or .ppt file. Unlike with Prezi, there is not much of a learning curve with Haiku Deck, especially if you are familiar with PowerPoint. If you have an iPad or iPhone, there is a free app that would allow you to work on your presentations on the go, too. Your students would also benefit by not having to purchase specific software and by being able to complete assignments on mobile devices.

There really do not seem to be any disadvantages to using Haiku Deck, so you may as well give it a try. If you make the switch, you can even follow some simple directions to move your PowerPoint or Keynote presentations into Haiku Deck. It might not be quite the same as a Haiku Deck, but it is nice to have everything in one place.

What do you use to make your presentations? Share your favorite software, sites, or apps by leaving a comment below.