PowerPointPowerPoint has long been a staple in the face-to-face educational community. In the right hands, it has the ability to deliver clear, understandable “chunks” of information that includes animation and interactivity. (In the wrong hands, however, it can be a sloppy, confusing mess…but that can be the focus of a later posting.)

Problems arise, however, when you try to deliver your presentation over the Web. “Save for Web” features built into PowerPoint, for example, cause as many problems as they solve, forcing students and instructors to comply with Windows marketing in order to function, often losing many of the presentation’s primary functions.

Numerous companies have capitalized on PowerPoint’s firm anchor in the desktop realm, providing conversion tools that transfer your presentation to alternative formats.

CaptivateWhile Adobe Captivate, for example, is primarily a screen-capture tool, it also has the ability to convert PowerPoint presentations to the ubiquitous Flash format. At nearly $700 (not counting educational discounts), the price tag is generally well out of reach of the average college professor.
http://www.adobe.com/products/captivate/..

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CamtasiaTechSmith’s Camtasia Studio also has the ability to record PowerPoint presentations complete with animation, sound effects, video, etc., and output to a variety of formats (Quicktime, WMV, Flash), but the final product is linear in display. The final “movie” can only be started and stopped. At $299, the price is a little less painful than Captivate, fortunately.
http://www.techsmith.com/camtasia.asp

ImpaticaI’ve heard good things about Impatica’s Impatica for PowerPoint, but haven’t had a  chance to use it yet.  The product has been around for several years now and has been accepted by many in the educational community.http://www.impatica.com/imp4ppt/
 

WondersharePPT2FlashI’ve not yet tried Wondershare’s PPT2Flash yet, but I’ll give it a try soon and see how it compares. http://www.wondershare.com/e-learning/ppt2flashstd/ppt2flashstd_overview.html..

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iSpring FreeRecently, I’ve been using iSpring’s iSpring Free 3.2 at the suggestion of a colleague, and I would have to say I’m impressed. Not only is this conversion tool free, it really does the trick! If course, the free version leaves some branding visible, but it’s so unobtrusive who cares? If you go full screen (a feature I haven’t seen in any of the other products) you don’t see the branding anyway.
http://www.ispringsolutions.com/So far, conversion of my PowerPoint presentations to Flash (including the necessary HTML) has been flawless. The resulting file keeps my audio, animation, images and transitions. Woo-hoo!The only minor hiccup I’ve found has been that the iSpring product doesn’t allow you to turn off “Advance on mouse click”…something you’ll need to do if building interactive non-linear presentations.The pro version (iSpring Pro 3.2) is still a bit pricey ($199), but educators get a 50% discount. I may have to consider it…If you regularly use PowerPoint as part of your curriculum, and you want to make the switch to online education, check out iSpring Free. Bottom line is you can’t beat the price for the value.