Creating engaging presentations can be a time-consuming but important task for educators. As a classroom teacher, I wanted to make sure I had clear visuals, concise information, and something for students to reference and review after a lesson. One question I’ve heard from educators during my travels this year is, “How can I use AI to make presentation slides?”
Since my work around AI in education focuses on instructional planning for teachers, using artificial intelligence to help save time is a big theme. With the advent of AI tools, this process has become more efficient and accessible. Although you still need to spend time making sure the output from an AI tool is worthy of sharing with your students – more on that shortly – it can certainly jump-start the creation process for you.
In this blog post, we’ll explore how you can harness AI to streamline the creation of presentation slides, making your teaching materials dynamic and interactive and saving you time along the way!
Why Use AI to Make Classroom Presentations?
Presentations are a staple in the classroom, useful for introducing new topics, summarizing key concepts, and facilitating group discussions. Slide decks can also serve as valuable resources for students to review content at their own pace. When I first started using iPads one-to-one with students, there weren’t any fifth-grade friendly learning management systems like Google Classroom available.
Instead, I was excited to give students access to a Dropbox folder where I could upload PDF versions of presentation decks and anchor charts that they could access later. AI tools can give you a jump start in creating these materials, saving you time and allowing you to focus on other student-facing tasks.
However, it’s important to remember that while AI can assist in the creation process, it’s not a substitute for your expertise. If you’ve joined me for a keynote, workshop or webinar this year, I offer this reminder throughout the sessions I host.
The technology is still evolving and isn’t likely to produce perfect results. You’ll want to review all content for accuracy of course. And you’ll also want to ensure it follows best practices, such as avoiding too much text on a slide and organizing information in a student-friendly way.
9 Tools That Use AI to Make Presentation Slides
Diffit
This tool helps create supplemental resources tailored to different learning levels, making it easier to differentiate instruction within your slide decks. It uses AI algorithms to adjust content complexity, ensuring all students can engage with the material. Diffit gives you the option to create resources – including Google Slides and PPT files – that contain content you already have or a topic you submit.
MagicSchool
MagicSchool has introduced a new feature that simplifies presentation creation, integrating seamlessly with educational content. It provides AI-generated content that can be directly transformed into slides. The feature gives you an outline you can use for inspiration or the option to turn your content into a slide deck.
Brisk Teaching
With Brisk Teaching‘s presentation creation option, you can generate slides quickly and efficiently. The tool analyzes the content in your browser – like an article or YouTube video – along with your text input to create visually appealing slides. I featured Brisk Teaching on the blog in the past, and this is just one of the options they offer teachers.
Curipod
Curipod offers an interactive tool that turns your presentations into engaging experiences with real-time student participation. You might remember this tool from an earlier post on the blog featuring popular AI tools. Curipod allows you to include live polls, quizzes, and drawing activities within your slides.
Canva
Canva incorporates AI to help you design visually appealing slides, offering templates and design suggestions based on your content. The AI can auto-adjust layouts to ensure visual harmony throughout your presentation. Additionally, Canva’s AI can recommend complementary color schemes and fonts to enhance readability. You can learn more about their Magic Design features here.
Adobe Firefly
Have you used AI images in your classroom yet? Adobe Firefly is just one example of a tool you can use to create custom images for your slide decks. This can add a unique visual element to your presentations. Adobe Firefly can generate images based on text descriptions, giving you creative control over visuals. It also supports style transfers, allowing you to apply artistic effects to your images – my favorite is the “layered paper” option.
ChatGPT
There are so many ways to leverage chatbots, like ChatGPT, to get ideas. I’ve featured oodles of resources on the blog, including this free download with 60+ prompts to try. ChatGPT and other chatbots like Gemini and Copilot can help you with presentation outlines, too. You can input your lesson objectives, and the AI will suggest a logical flow for your presentation. ChatGPT can also help generate speaker notes or discussion questions to accompany your slides. It won’t be perfect, but it can definitely help give you a head start.
SlidesAI
This AI tool converts text documents into presentation slides, saving you time on manual slide creation. You simply upload a document, and SlidesAI extracts key points to create concise slides. It also offers options to customize the theme and design of the generated presentation. SlidesAI has a free and paid version, but I think the free version has everything you need.
Prezi
Like many educators, Prezi was my go-to presentation tool when it first came on the scene. It hasn’t been in my toolbelt recently, but with the new AI features, I think it’s worthy of your consideration. With Prezi, you can create dynamic, non-linear presentations that engage students in an interactive way.
Trying Out AI to Make Presentation Slides
Which of these tools are you most interested in trying? AI tools provide a great starting point for creating presentation slides, but they should be seen as a means to jumpstart your drafts rather than final products. As I mentioned earlier in the post, you’ll want to customize and review the AI-generated content to ensure it meets your educational goals and adheres to best practices for teaching and learning.
For more ideas on using classroom technology and integrating AI into your teaching, check out my book, EdTech Essentials: 12 Strategies for Every Classroom in the Age of AI, 2nd Edition. It includes more AI connections and dozens of prompts for educators to try. If you already have a copy, don’t forget to download the free study guide!
