Top Benefits & Use Cases of Academic Presentation Software

Presentations are everywhere in academic settings. They show up in classrooms as classroom learning aids and presentation tools students use. And you’ll find them in numerous other academic contexts, from meetings and fine arts events to the morning announcements and even sporting events.

Behind every single presentation is presentation software, and the choice of software solution influences the quality and style possibilities.

A free education-oriented presentation solution may be sufficient for some uses (especially student use). But in others, a more robust, fully-featured academic presentation software is worth the investment.

Let’s examine the top benefits and use cases for academic presentation software.

Academic Presentation Software vs. General-Market Products

First, let’s walk through the differences between more polished academic presentation software and general-market alternatives like Microsoft PowerPoint or Google Slides.

General-market applications have certain benefits: they are widely available, and some of them are free. Many people already know how to use them at a basic level, and these apps tend to come from giant software providers who can offer deep support. (They don’t always do so, but that’s another discussion.)

Sometimes, a free or already-available product is good enough. If Google Slides does everything you could ever want to accomplish in a presentation for free, why pay for something better?

But there are plenty of situations where “good enough” isn’t good enough: you need specific functions those tools don’t have or better, more powerful capabilities built with your needs in mind. Not the generic needs of the mass market.

When you reach the end of what Google Slides or Canva or Prezi can do, then it’s time to consider higher-end academic presentation software.

Benefits of Academic Presentation Software

You’ll gain several benefits from switching to academic presentation software. If these capabilities sound like what you’ve been missing, then it’s time to consider switching.

Multiple Outputs

PowerPoint is designed to produce one output. That’s it. You can access a presenter view on your device as a sort of second view, but you can’t customize that view in any way.

That approach works fine in a small classroom or meeting. But it likely won’t be sufficient for fine arts productions, sporting events, or large assemblies. The single-output approach can create problems for live streaming, too—or at least limit what you can do or show when live streaming.

ProPresenter is dedicated academic presentation software that can produce multiple distinct outputs from within a single presentation. Send whatever content elements you choose to whichever outputs or screens you select. This is pro-grade output support that eclipses anything the general market has to offer.

Edit While Running

Traditional presentation software makes it difficult, sometimes impossible, to edit shows while they’re running. This isn’t ideal in education, where a factual error on screen can inhibit learning and may even be immortalized thanks to recorded lectures and hybrid learning.

Academic presentation software should allow you to edit a show while it’s running, keeping your content accurate and up to date. This ability also enables powerful interactive classroom experiences that PowerPoint can’t replicate.

More Capable Media Handling

There’s hardly a classroom teacher or college instructor who hasn’t run into issues with embedding media in traditional presentation files. Leave broken videos behind by switching to a software solution that more capably handles media across a wide range of audio and video formats.

Wider Support for Live and Broadcast Inputs and Formats

If you oversee a larger academic space, such as a large lecture hall or assembly room, you may run equipment designed for live performances or even video broadcasts. Where classroom teachers run presentations over HDMI, DisplayPort, or maybe VGA, you’re dealing with pro video and audio equipment or even broadcast protocols. It’s a bit more complicated than “plug in the one cable and turn on the projector,” and you need capable software to match the complexity of your setup.

ProPresenter is built to support situations like these. It can handle nearly any video or audio source that your computer can recognize — including broadcast formats like SDI, NDI, and Syphon, or even simple outputs like HDMI.

Friendly for Teacher and Student Use

Last, while academic presentation software needs to offer additional capabilities and features, it still must be friendly enough to use that teachers and students alike can do so without significant training. Any market solution aimed toward education should prioritize ease of use.

Use Cases for Academic Presentation Software

We’ve mentioned several use cases for academic presentation software already in passing, but there are others we haven’t touched on. If you’re not sure whether your institution would benefit from a more powerful presentation solution, consider these use cases and how they could be better if you had more capable software.

Sporting Events

High school and college sports often incorporate visuals and plenty of audio content. Scoreboards, video screens and any other AV equipment all need software to power them.

In addition to ProPresenter, Renewed Vision offers Scoreboard and ProVideoPlayer, the perfect combination for any sports venue.

Fine Arts Productions

Fine arts productions can demand complex sound and lighting cues, and the right presentation software can give your fine arts department the ability to extend visuals beyond lights alone. Looping video, effects, and precise visual control are all required here.

Communication, AV Teams, Morning Announcements

Many schools run daily announcements on screens, doubling locations for school-wide visual communication. AV teams may handle the day-to-day but need software to power the experience.

Assemblies

Schoolwide assemblies and other non-classroom gatherings tend to occur in large spaces with existing AV capabilities. Academic presentation software enables educators to visually reinforce whatever message is being shared at the assembly in powerful, engaging ways.

Classrooms

Classrooms today are equipped with projectors or smart boards that teachers and students can use to run presentations. While less powerful presentation tools may be good enough for many classroom uses, having something more powerful available doesn’t hurt.

Administrative Meetings

Teachers, faculty, staff, and administrators all have occasional meetings for a variety of purposes including professional development. Whatever the purpose or topic, better, more engaging visuals will always be a help.

ProPresenter: Academic Presentation Software at Its Best

ProPresenter is professional-grade presentation software that more than meets the needs of educators and the institutions where they work. With robust support for everything described in this article and more, ProPresenter offers capabilities that PowerPoint and Google Slides can’t — and it’s easy to learn and use across your campus or district.

Reach out to our sales team to discuss educational licensing, or download ProPresenter now and begin an unrestricted free trial to see if ProPresenter is right for your needs.