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Free Gifs for PowerPoint to Animate Your Killer Presentation

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By Al Boicheva

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3 years ago

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Do you know what will make your presentation even more awesome? Animations, that’s what. This is why today we gathered for you an entire collection of free Gifs for PowerPoint you can download and use right away. In the following article, you’ll find our exclusive free for personal and commercial use character-based GIF animations, as well as freebie animations from other sources.

Since we added a new category for PowerPoint presentations where we added our free and premium packs, we decided to expand the concept and add other resources, such as the animations you’re about to see. So let’s jump right in.

Article overview: 1. Free Gifs for PowerPoint by GraphicMama 2. Free PowerPoint Animation Sources by Other Creators 2.1. Free Social Media Animations from Cliply 2.2. Fair Use Free Gifs on Giphy 2.3. Fair Use Free Gifs on Tenor 2.4. Generating Free Animated Gifs for Presentations by MotionElements 3. Premium Animated GIF sets

1. Free Gifs for PowerPoint by GraphicMama

We’ll start with a royalty-free collection of our own. We made these Gifs for PowerPoint and would love to share them with you. These are exclusive for today’s article, so you won’t find them anywhere on our website. With that out of the way, feel free to download any pack of animations you like directly and get creative with your next presentation. Each bundle includes the poses you’ll see in the preview image in a zip file with high-quality transparent gifs with 1080 px width.

📝 These characters are also exclusive free puppets for your animation videos. You can find them in our article, a collection of  Most Awesome and Free Character Animator Puppets .

Alex The Businessman Free Gifs for PowerPoint

Poses Preview: Waving, Thumbs Up, Puzzled, Pointing Up

Here’s one of our most popular characters with 4 different presentational poses. The young businessman always brings a good mood and professionalism.

• 4 Separate Animations
• Files : Transparent GIF
• Height : 1080 pixels
• Based on: Alex the Businessman Puppet for Character Animator
• License : Royalty-Free │ Free for Personal and Commercial Use │ Do Not Sell or Distribute

Viking Boy Free Gifs for PowerPoint

Poses Preview: Waving, Showing, Pointing Up, Thumbs Up

Big and strong Viking boy with a soft and kind heart. He’s the sidekick of his young but fierce Viking sister and together they invade presentations and make them awesome.

• Based on: Free Male Viking Character Set  for presentations

Viking Girl Free Gifs for PowerPoint

Poses Preview: Showing, Waving, Thumbs Up, Pointing Up

And here she is, the little sister with an attitude. Trained as a great warrior, the Viking girl means business and doesn’t back down.

• Based on : Free female Viking Cartoon Character Set

Cute Business Bear Free Gifs for PowerPoint

Poses Preview: Showing, Pointing Up, Thumbs Up, Waving

Can’t bear the awesomeness of the charming business bear and his impeccable sports elegant style.

• Based on : Free Bear Cartoon Character Set

Friendly Caveman Free Gifs for PowerPoint

Poses Preview: Pointing Up, ThumbsUp, Waving, Angry with a Bat

Detailed cartoon of a confident caveman with an epic unibrow that will bring a lot of fun to your videos. One of the animations gives him a stone bat to wave around fiercely if your audience doesn’t pay enough attention.

• Based on : Free Caveman Cartoon Character Set

Charming Green Witch Free Gifs for PowerPoint

Poses Preview: Thumbs Up 1, Showing, Waving, Thumbs Up 2

Luckily, we’re past the middle ages and it’s ok and legal to bring some sorcery into your presentations. When it comes to PowerPoint magic, this sweet green witch is your girl.

Cool Tiger Free Gifs for PowerPoint

Poses Preview: Puzzled 1, Impatient, Pointing Up, Thumbs Up

Here’s a beautiful striped powerful-looking but quite a friendly tiger cartoon character. He’s very diverse in terms of projects you can use him for.

Nerdy Entrepreneur Free Gifs for PowerPoint

Poses Preview: A Brilliant Idea, Thumbs Up, Waving, Pointing Up

This guy is full of brilliant ideas so if you relate, why not join forces and make an insightful business presentation for your viewers.

• Based on: Free Presentation Cartoon Character Set

Businesswoman Executive Free Gifs for PowerPoint Animation Poses

Poses Preview: Showing, Waving, Pointing Up, Thumbs Up

This charming lady is a business strategist character and has rolled her sleeves to do some winning. Ideal for marketing presentations and explainer videos.

Powerful Female Superhero Free PowerPoint Gif Animations

Poses Preview: Waving 1, Pointing Up, Thumbs Up, Waving 2, Power Up

This superhero girl packs beauty and power in one character.  She floats in the air while giving presentations some star power.

• 5 Separate Animations

Superhero With a Cape Free PowerPoint Animation Poses

Poses Preview: Thumbs Up, Waving, Pointing Up, Confused

Sometimes, what you need is a mighty superhero with a cool cape. So, here’s a powerful crime-fighter with a hidden identity behind a mask with laser eyes.

• Based on : Free Superhero Cartoon Character Set

Octoberfest Waitress Free Gifs for PowerPoint Animation Poses

Poses Preview: Dessert, Waving, Thumbs Up, Menu

Next is a lovely blonde Octoberfest-style waitress with sweet desserts and a menu animation poses. Ideal for presentations related to restaurants, bars, beer and sweets.

Chilling Monk Free PowerPoint Animation Poses

Poses Preview: Waving, Tea, Pointing Up

Eastern monk with a hot cup of tea. Nothing less than pure relaxation for your zen presentation.

• 3 Separate Animations
• Based on : Free Monk Boy Cartoon Character Set

Cute Retro Robot Free PowerPoint Animations

Poses Preview: Hiding, Pointing, Shy, Love, Thumbs Up, Waving

This a very cute, shy vintage robot puppet that rocks the retro-futuristic style as a character coming straight out of a SciFi movie from the 60s. Ideal for presentations about technology.

• 6 Separate Animations

Friendly Shark Free PowerPoint Animation Poses

Poses Preview: Attention, Vibing, Waving, Bye Bye

Here’s Sharkboy. The lovable, friendly goofy shark who’s just vibing and will make you fall in love with him.

2. Free PowerPoint Animation Sources by Other Creators

These were the exclusive free PowerPoint animations we had much fun making and were eager to share. Now, let’s move on to the other sources that we recommend when you’re in search of royalty-free animations or gifs under the Fair Use copyright law. We’ll point out the specific terms of each source in its respective category.

📝 Please keep in mind that non-profit and educational projects are always a safe option when using free resources.

2.1. Free Social Media Animations from Cliply

Cliply has a huge collection of premium animated icons and other animations. Depending on if you purchase freebies, premium, or business resources, the licenses and uses vary. This is why make sure to check out the license on every resource you decide to download.

However, today we’re all about free animations. That’s why we’ve selected some great-looking social media icon animations for your social media slides in PowerPoint.

YouTube Icon Free Animation

• Files : MOV, MP4, PNG, GIF
• Height : Up to 1080 px
• License : Free for personal, nonprofit, and educational use.
• Terms : Attribution not required but appreciated

Twitter Icon Free Animation

Tiktok logo free animation, tiktok icon free animation, social media icons free animation, linkedin icon free animation, instagram likes free animation.

• License : Royalty-Free │ Free for personal, nonprofit, and educational use.
• Terms : Attribution not required

Instagram Icon Free Animation

Facebook icon free animation, 2.2. fair use free gifs on giphy.

Aside from the free PowerPoint animations, you can also benefit from using live-action GIFs.  Giphy is one of the databases that offer an endless library of GIFs based on movies, tv-shows, videos, and everything else. You will find out everything viral and the latest memes made into GIFs. Now, the question is. Is it legal to use a free GIF that has a few seconds from a scene from an obviously copyrighted movie or video?

📝  Just like every other creative work, GIFs are copyright material. However . They are more complicated as there is no legal way to license the use of GIFs for the purposes of commercial use. With this being said, in most cases, GIFs fall under the grey area of Fair Use .

With this in mind, you will find out many brands use such GIFs for their blog posts, ads, and social media. You can also use such materials in your PowerPoint presentations to make your visuals more fun and engaging. Especially if you’re an educator and wish to make your lesson more exciting for your student. Memes will save us all! 🙂

Below are some great examples from Giphy great for presentational purposes.

Simpson’s Free Presentation GIF

Cartman free presentation gif, 2.3. fair use free gifs on tenor.

Similar to Giphy,  Tenor also offers a huge database of GIF images on every topic. This database benefits from an entire community of users uploading GIFs on a daily basis so there’s something for everyone.

For example, here’s how to make your cats listen to you and watch your presentation.

Thursday Laser Pointer GIF

Cartoon science presentation gif, 2.4. generating free animated gifs for presentations by motionelements.

And the last source, something we stumbled on recently, is MotionElements . This is a royalty-free marketplace in Asia for stock media where we found a curious way to make presentation GIFs. It’s not free PowerPoint animations but gives an equally nice interaction and life to a presentation.

Their  free animated gifs category  has various few-seconds videos that you can turn into GIFs. When you click a video, you can select which moment from it you’d like as a GIF. Once you’re ready, you can choose to save the GIF in three different sizes.

• Requirements: Downloading freebies requires registration (no credit card info required unless you want to download Premium resources)
• License: Royalty-Free │ Safe for Commercial Use
• Available Gif Sizes from Videos: Small (256 x 144 px), Medium (480 x 270 px), Large ( 640 x 360 px)

Below are a few examples of GIFs we’ve made from MotionElement’s videos to try out the GIF-maker.

Young Successful Businesswoman Free Stock Gif

Welcome to the presentation free stock gif, business concept wordstorm free stock gif, grand opening presentation intro free stock gif, 3. premium animated gif sets.

These were the exclusive free PowerPoint animations by Graphic Mama and free gifs and animations from other sources. We hope you enjoyed the collection and expanded your library with valuable resources for your next presentation.

Now, if you really want to make a hyper-interactive PowerPoint presentation with more matching action poses and versatile concept animations, have a look below.

We made the following animation sets specifically with that idea in mind and we’re excited to show them off.

Nick Smartman Animated GIF Images Collection

Nick is a smart business cartoon character set of 12 animated GIFs. The animations suit many different purposes, like presentations, or social media posts.

• 12 Separate Animations for PowerPoint
• Files : Transparent GIF images
• Based on: Nick Smartman Character Set   │ Puppet

Elegant Businesswoman Animated GIFs Collection

Here’s our lovely elegant business lady character that comes in 12 different presentational animations in GIF format. The animations feature pointing, waving, peeking, targeting, and more.

• Based on: Attractive Businesswoman Character Animator Puppet

Flying Robot Animated GIFs Collection

There is not a single reason why you shouldn’t put a robot character in your presentation. Robots are cool, and everybody loves them. This little guy is jet-packed with 12 different animations and emotions.

• Based on : Flying Robot Cartoon Character Set  │ Puppet

Cute Panda Animated GIFs Collection

Bambootiful panda character arrives with 12 different animations to assist your presentations. The cute panda set features the animated concepts in GIF format files, ready to import and use for your projects.

• Based on: Cute Panda Character Set  │   Puppet

Alice Skinny Jeans Animated GIFs Collection

Alice is a cute, young woman cartoon character with blonde hair. She is available in a set of 12 animated GIFs. Each of them is 1080px tall. They are perfect for many different purposes, for example, you can use them in your presentations, or combine them with text and use them in social media.

• Based on : Casual Alice with Skinny Jeans Character Set  │ Puppet

Alfred Carierist Animated GIFs Collection

Alfred is a smart executive-type businessman character, available in a set of 12 animated GIFs. Each of the animated GIFs is 1080px tall. They are perfect for many different purposes, for example, you can use them in your presentations, or combine them with text and use them in social media.

• Based on: Alfred the Careerist Character Set  │ Puppet

Final Words

Animations in PowerPoint are absolutely awesome. They give that extra chef’s kiss that can turn a presentation into a personal masterpiece. Feel free to use our free Gifs for PowerPoint for your next project and build more engagement.

In the meantime, for more free resources for PowerPoint, check out these related articles.

• The Best Free PowerPoint Templates to Download in 2022
• 30 Free Cute PowerPoint Templates: Collection For A Sweet Presentation
• 25 Free Education PowerPoint Templates For Lessons, Thesis, and Online Lectures

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Al Boicheva

Al is an illustrator at GraphicMama with out-of-the-box thinking and a passion for anything creative. In her free time, you will see her drooling over tattoo art, Manga, and horror movies.

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Digital Project: Make a Gif With Google Slides

Challenge your students to create an animated gif of what they are learning! It is so easy to do! Students can make an animation of any process or event. It can be as long or short as you would like.

My students love to make animated gifs. They are a great way to demonstrate knowledge of any process or event. For example, my Biology students were tasked with choosing a cell organelle and making a gif showing the function of that organelle. They really enjoyed the project and made some amazing animations!

Here are just a few possibilities (from a science-teacher brain! But hopefully can inspire you in your own subject area!):

• Process of mitosis or meiosis
• The water cycle (or any cycle!)
• Pollination
• Movement of blood through the heart
• How a neuron fires
• Animate a scene from a story they wrote themselves
• Create how-to instructions
• A historical event
• A scene from a novel

It is SO EASY to make a Gif with Google Slides!

Do not be intimidated! I promise it is super easy to make an animated Gif , or even a stop-motion clip. All your students need is Google Slides and the website TallTweets.

NOTE : there is a way to make a gif with ONLY Google Slides. This will be explained at the end of the post, and you will see why using TallTweets makes a far better gif for very little extra effort!

Start with a blank Google Slide presentation . Create the first scene of the gif on the first slide. The shapes tools can be useful for making simple drawings. Images from the internet can also be incorporated, as well as text.

Here are some fun gifs made by students as part of a book project. This one uses just shapes, while this one includes a car image she got off the internet.

Once the first scene is done, duplicate the slide. On the duplicate (second slide) move the items just a little bit, then duplicate the slide again. Each slide will be like a single page of a flip book – moving your animation just a bit at a time as the slides progress.

Click here to take a look at the full set of images for the bouncing ball.

Use TallTweets to make a Gif with Google Slides

When all of the slides are complete, head over to www.TallTweets.com . You won’t believe how simple this is!

Scroll down to Tall Tweets Classic and log in with the Google Account you made your Slides in. From there, choose your Slides presentation.

It may take a minute (or five!) to load your gif depending on how many slides you have – but it is worth the wait!

At this screen, you can adjust the size of your gif – I always just leave this blank. I use 0.2 or 0.3 for the number of seconds per frame. You can set this and adjust it if you prefer something faster or slower.

The bottom line allows you to select a different order for your slides, or to skip slides. Again, I leave this blank, being sure that the Google Slides already has the images I want in the proper order.

If you want to see a demonstration, here is a great video of how to use TallTweets!

After clicking the ‘Create’ button, you will see a preview of your gif! Students can download the file and share it with you from their computer, or upload it to their Google Drives and share that way.

Related: Need more fun digital ideas for your classroom? Check out Seven New Ways to Use Google Forms for student learning!

TallTweets also offers an easy to use Google Slides Add-On , which allows you to create animations right inside Google Slides. Take a look at this quick video to see how it works!

This same method can be used to make a stop-motion video! Students can take a series of photographs, adjusting manipulatives or a model a bit at a time in each photo. Then load one photo on each Google Slide . To make it even easier, photos can be taken inside Google Slides by going to Insert > Image > Camera!

Making a Google Slides Gif Without TallTweets

To make a gif with Google Slides alone, open your Slides and click on File, then Publish to Web. In the box that comes up, choose to ‘auto advance slides every second’ and then check the two boxes. When you click submit, you will get a URL which is the link to your gif!

I prefer TallTweets because the animation is so much smoother. Google Slides can not progress the slides faster than one frame per second, which makes them choppy (see below). In comparison, the TallTweets gif ( click here ) is moving at 0.2 seconds per slide.

What kinds of gifs can your students make? Post your ideas below to inspire other teachers!

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How GIFs Can Invigorate Instruction

In the classroom, GIFs can help clarify complex processes—and students can easily create their own to share their understanding.

A well-executed GIF can be life-changing. I discovered this firsthand when I learned how to parallel park. I practiced and carefully examined diagrams that promised to help me place my tires, but my car still routinely wound up at an angle and far more than a foot from the curb. Eventually, my deep research into the mysteries of parallel parking led me to a GIF that broke down what to look at and line up while parallel parking, with the animation demonstrating positioning. I watched the GIF carefully a few times, drove downtown, and pulled off a perfect parking job on my first try.

But the GIF didn’t just represent an aha moment that added to my life-skill toolbox—it also transformed aspects of my teaching practice.

It’s All About the Motion

When I thought about why the GIF was so transformative in terms of my learning, I realized that it was the combination of motion with images that made the difference. Neither diagrams nor videos worked alone, but when the two mediums were paired, the lesson clicked.

I asked myself how many times I’d presented my biology students with a static diagram and an explanation at different times... and immediately understood why neither sank in with some of my students. Traditional images, I reasoned, could help students learn the content I was presenting to a certain extent, but GIFs could lead to deeper learning.

My first experiment with GIFs in the classroom was with my environmental science section. I transformed a diagram that showed energy locations in an ecosystem into one that showcased how the energy flowed through it instead. Previously, in the same lesson I would have simply pointed at a series of static pictures and said, “This is where the energy is going,” but with a GIF, my students could actually see that flow.

I saw immediately that they enjoyed seeing movement and that it helped them to visualize the content I was teaching—so much so that they requested more. That was when I took the approach one step further and put the creation of GIFs into their own hands, using Keynote.

Soon, multiple static images, including their own drawings, were re-created to form moving masterpieces covering everything from food webs to the path that food takes to reach their homes to global weather patterns.

GIFs Work Across Content Areas

Nearly anything can be transformed into a GIF, no matter what the subject. Imagine, for example, seeing numbers move in a mathematical equation for the conversion of logarithmic function into its exponential form so that the students could visualize the translation of the numbers between forms; check out this Reddit for other cool ideas for math GIFs. Here are a few examples of how they can be used to demonstrate phenomena, but they can also be used to create writing prompts and in ELA classrooms .

Tools for Creating GIFs

Depending on the technology available to you and your students, GIFs can be made in a variety of ways. You can export either a Keynote or Slides presentation as a GIF; when you export it this way, all of the transitions, animations, and movements on your slides will flow in a short cycle, depending on the time interval you set to be between each item. Another option is a website like Giphy , where the GIF maker tool can be used to create an animation in one of two ways: organizing a set of pictures into an animation (similar to creating a flipbook on a loop) or trimming videos into short, chunked pieces of information. Storyboard That also has a GIF creator, and you can export Screencastify recordings as GIFs, too.

Tips for Making Effective GIFs

If you’re creating your own GIFs or asking your students to create their own, keep the following in mind:

Plan: Once you’ve got your topic in mind, storyboard the message. What are the key elements that the animation should have? How are they going to be displayed? What is the sequence going to look like? These questions should all be answered in the planning process.

Keep it short: An educational GIF animation should be around 10 to 20 seconds in length. Brevity provides an opportunity to chunk material that you are looking to present in the animation. For example, instead of focusing on the nitrogen cycle as a whole, create an animation that focuses on the transition of atmospheric nitrogen to the soil.

Also, keeping it short allows for the learner to rewatch it multiple times in a brief period.

Be creative: GIFs are fundamentally eye-catching, but they’re even more so if the graphics you use are, too. When you draw part of a diagram for a GIF, think about attractive colors and shapes that can demonstrate a concept. The more engaging and fun the animation is, the more those watching will develop a deeper and enduring connection to it.

Include humor: There’s a place for humor in instructional GIFs, just like there is in many pop culture GIFs. Students will appreciate humor in GIFs that you create and be more engaged if they have permission to infuse their own creations with humor. Also, if you can make students laugh with an instructional GIF, chances are they’ll remember it better. 

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A Step-by-Step Guide to GIF Animations

GIFs are the new meme. They’ve become such a prominent part of our pop culture that the latest update of Apple’s iOS included a GIF keyboard! I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve even had an entire text conversation only using GIFs. Teachers love them, students love them, so why not make them? Students are very interested in the world of animation and creating GIFs is a simple way to explore it.

Check out this step-by-step guide to begin creating GIF animations using Photoshop.

1. history of the gif.

Before tackling GIF animation it’s best to give your students a brief history lesson. Photographer Eadweard Muybridge, known as the “ Grandfather of the Motion Picture ,” first captured motion through photography in the 1870s. However, the first GIF (Graphic Interchange Format) wouldn’t be created until 1987. The GIF is a compressed file that was ideal for sharing across slow modem connections in the 1990s. In 1997 the “ Dancing Baby ” would go viral and the rest is history. For a more detailed look at the history of the GIF,  share this presentation with your students.

2. Upload or Create Images in Photoshop

Before jumping into animation, your students will need to have a solid understanding of Photoshop. These beginning projects would be a great way to get students started.

To start, students can simply upload images or draw directly in Photoshop. From here, they will use their editing skills and tools to manipulate their image however they wish. It will be important to work in layers as they create. Encourage students to spend quality time on this step, because this is the step that will take the most time.

To follow along, download this PSD file . This is also a great way for students to learn the process.

3. Open the Animation Window

Once you have completed editing the static image or drawing, the animation process begins. Depending on the version of Photoshop you are working in, this will be a little different. In the toolbar, select Window>Animation or Window>Timeline. From here, make sure your window is in frame animation mode. This should look similar to the image below.

4. Create Animation with Layer Visibility

In this step, students will need to understand layer visibility. Layer visibility is simply clicking the eye icon to the left of the layer to hide or show it. This process is best explained by comparing it to stop motion. Virtually, we are putting a series of still images together to create a moving image. Using layer visibility will allow for gradual changes to be made in the animation.

Each time a new movement is desired the frame will need to be duplicated. In the kite example, the kite can be moved around in each duplicated frame to give the illusion it is flying.

5. Adjust Timing

Before finishing the animation, adjust the time under each frame. Depending on the desired speed of the animation, time can be adjusted easily.

If you want your GIF to play through continuously without stopping, make sure to select the forever option.

6. Preview GIF

7. saving the gif.

Saving a GIF in Photoshop is different than saving other files. Make sure you are saving the file “For Web and Devices.” In newer versions of Photoshop, you will have to Export > Save for Web.

A new window will appear to finalize saving options. In the presets, I’d recommend saving it as “GIF 128 Dithered.” This will optimize more complicated and colorful graphics. After you have saved the GIF you can view it by dragging the file into an internet browser. Students can also send the image to themselves to view it on their phone!

Creating GIFs Without Photoshop

• Here are directions for creating GIFs using GIMP.
• Free editing sites like Pixlr or GIMP can be used to manipulate images. To convert images into a GIF, visit this website .

Creating GIFs will be an engaging process for your students. But be warned–once you show them how to do it, they will want to animate everything!

Do you create animation projects in your art room?

How do you incorporate technology to engage students?

Magazine articles and podcasts are opinions of professional education contributors and do not necessarily represent the position of the Art of Education University (AOEU) or its academic offerings. Contributors use terms in the way they are most often talked about in the scope of their educational experiences.

Abby Schukei

Abby Schukei, a middle school art educator and AOEU’s Social Media Manager, is a former AOEU Writer. She focuses on creating meaningful experiences for her students through technology integration, innovation, and creativity.

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The 10 Best Presentation Tools for Students in 2023

Presentation tools for students have come a long way.

Students have access to all sorts of digital presentation tools, from legacy slide-based tools like PowerPoint to truly inventive and experimental new formats that incorporate live and prerecorded video and audio. The rise in virtual, hybrid, and flipped classrooms has made the need for education-focused online presentation tools for students all the greater.

Wondering which tools will help your students create the best presentations? We’ve shown you tools before, like 20 classroom technology tools you may not know , but many of those were teacher-focused. Here are 10 of the best student presentation tools your kiddos can use in 2023. And listen to this episode of EdTech Heroes with Sultan Rana to see how you can revolutionize presentations for students this year!

Importance of students learning to use a range of presentation tech tools 🎬

Before we get into this list, it’s fair to ask: Is it really all that important for students to get comfortable using technology-based presentation tools? 🤔

We believe the answer is an emphatic “Yes!”

The modern world we live in already depends on all sorts of tech and that dependence will only increase. Today’s students are tomorrow’s adults, and it’s vital they develop media literacy skills now. This is behind the push for digital citizenship , or teaching children to use tech safely and responsibly so they can effectively participate in society in the future.  

Many students are already comfortable navigating smartphone apps, video games, smart TVs, and social media. But throw a PowerPoint or other business tool in front of them, and it’s another story. They aren’t technology averse. But neither are they automatically comfortable with all the different software and user interfaces that they’ll encounter in the professional and business world.

As the world grows more technologically complex 🤖, the professionals of tomorrow need exposure today to the language of technology. 

By engaging with a range of presentation tools — along with edtech tools like Google Classroom and other LMS platforms — students gain a more well-rounded understanding of how to interact with productivity-oriented tech. They learn how to communicate their ideas and collaborate across physical and virtual spaces with ease. 

With that question answered, let’s jump into the top 10 student presentation tools that will support your students’ tech skills and overall growth. 

1. Screencastify Submit

Screencastify Submit does many things. It allows teachers to create presentation assignments for students. It also allows students to easily record and submit these short video assignments on any device. It’s a great way to practice giving live presentations without the pressure of an audience, plus it helps students gain skills with talking and presenting on camera. 🎥

Another advantage for students: Students can practice their presentation skills and wait to submit until they’ve recorded their favorite take. 

Screencastify Submit is simple because it’s designed to be a secure, closed system between teachers and students. However, the broader Screencastify suite — one of the top Google Chrome extensions for educators and students — has plenty of integrations with popular LMSes and edtech platforms. 

2. PowerPoint and Google Slides

Two of the classic slide-building apps, PowerPoint and Google Slides feel very traditional compared to many of the other tools listed here. Still, both apps are easy introductions to the concept of creating basic 2D designs and visually appealing presentations. PowerPoint Presentations and Google Slides allow students to create slideshow content with transitions, animations, multiple slide layouts, and more.

These presentation software solutions help students prioritize the information that’s most useful to their audience and hone the ability to present that material in a visually engaging way. They can also be used in conjunction with screencasting or screen sharing to present in a more live or interactive manner.

These apps are both widespread and integrate seamlessly with a variety of tools. For Apple users, Keynote is another option in this same style, but it’s limited to only macOS and iOS, making it less widely adopted.

Note that Google Slides is free for everyone with a Gmail account, but PowerPoint requires an individual subscription or a school-wide license.

3. Prezi Next

The original Prezi was like a cooler, snappier version of PowerPoint. It did away with the feeling that every slide was a static rectangular image and let users create presentations that felt more like unique little worlds 🌍  than like conference room snooze-fests 😴 .

Unfortunately, it was built on Adobe Flash, which is dead and gone .

Prezi Next is the new generation of Prezi, built fresh in HTML5. It keeps the feel of the original and enables students to produce creative, imaginative presentations full of both whimsy and functionality. Templates in Prezi Next allow students to be creative, detailed, and look great in the process.

Prezi also integrates with major video conferencing apps like Google Meet and Zoom, allowing students to present their Prezi live. 

4. Haiku Deck

Haiku Deck is another slide-based presentation app. It’s entirely cloud-based, meaning you can access Haiku Deck from the web. The big differentiator with Haiku Deck is its automated image search. The app intelligently analyzes the text that your students add to their slides, then it suggests photos and slide designs that make sense for that text.

Haiku Deck gives users access to over 40 million royalty-free images (meaning no more watermarks or pixelated backgrounds) and includes dozens of themes designed by pros, complete with complementary fonts picked out for each one.

Haiku Deck is mostly a standalone tool. So, while you don’t get deep integrations with other tools, you might not really need them.

Related: Learn about the best tools for student engagement in this episode of EdTech Heroes !

5. Pear Deck

Before they ever explain what Pear Deck is, the team behind Pear Deck points to research showing that learning has both social, emotional and academic components and goes into great detail about the research-backed instructional strategies that the platform supports.

So, this tool comes from a team that’s dedicated to improving educational outcomes for all kinds of learners. But what does it do, exactly?

Essentially, Pear Deck operates as an add-on to Google Slides or PowerPoint and allows you to turn those static presentation tools into dynamic, interactive educational experiences. You can embed quizzes, tutorials, and other interactive content and see student responses in real time.

Although it’s aimed at teachers, it can be used by students to enhance their own presentations with engaging content like Q&A or audio and video, and gives them more creative freedom. 

Sutori is a tool that’s purpose built to help students create timelines and roadmaps and tell stories. It’s simple and streamlined, making it easy for students of all ages to use. Students can even embed media on their Sutori timelines, and Sutori is easy to use online and via remote learning.

Sutori’s timeline focus makes it perfect for social studies or history and any other linear, time-based lessons. The company also lists use cases for English, Language, Arts, and STEM teachers. It’s a great tool for fostering multimedia collaboration, critical thinking (via both primary and secondary sources), and research skills.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words 📸, and if that’s true, how much more is an infographic worth? A lot, when it comes to the classroom. Infographics are great storytelling tools, not to mention visual aids. The trouble is that making great infographics from scratch have required graphic design skills🧑‍💻  — until tools like Easelly.

Easelly lets anyone make quality infographics in a wide range of styles. Students can better visualize data and content, which is great both for their own critical thinking and logic skills as well as their public presentation skills.

Easelly includes numerous templates that make it easy to transform content from dry text and statistics into beautiful infographics.

Easelly doesn’t directly integrate with other tools, but infographics created in Easelly can easily (hence the name) be exported to other tools to be shared or presented.

8. Glogster

Glogster is a tool for creating multimedia posters that can include 3D elements. Students can embed a wide range of media into a Glogster, including screencast videos, graphics, images, audio, and even 3D and VR objects.

Glogster is somewhat like an oversized poster board to make a class project or report, but also interactive and zoomable. It’s a digital canvas that makes just about anything visual possible, all within one space.

Students can practice their visual storytelling skills and get comfortable navigating and embedding multiple media types with Glogster.

9. VoiceThread

VoiceThread is a unique tool that lets users collaborate and discuss just about anything: videos, images, documents and more using features like annotations, highlights, pausing, zooming. It’s essentially a media-focused video chat tool.

In the K-12 landscape, VoiceThread is great for students who want to share a specific media file with others and collaborate either in discussion or in a Q&A after a presentation. Viewers can add video comments and questions directly to a presentation, giving a more personal level of engagement especially for fully remote classrooms. Students can develop great conversational and presentation skills using VoiceThread, too.

Miro is a visual collaboration tool designed primarily for teams to get work done. In other words, it’s a business-focused digital whiteboard tool that has a lot of value for classrooms too. 

Students (and teachers) can use it for idea mapping 🗺, brainstorming, creating workflows or diagrams, and all sorts of other visual collaboration and presentation needs. 

It’s great for group projects where students might want to get a bunch of ideas mapped out prior to creating their polished presentation in another tool. Miro also has some effective templates that can help students work quickly.

Because it’s a business tool, Miro has all kinds of integrations with all the top business apps. Some of these are useful in education, such as Zoom, Google drive, and Microsoft Teams integrations.

Find out why students and teachers love Screencastify 🍎 

Screencastify is fantastic for any teacher who needs to create screencast videos quickly and easily. But it’s great for students, too! 

Students can use Screencastify Submit to easily create video responses to their teachers’ assignments, using the desktop, laptop, or mobile device they have at home. Older students can even use Screencastify themselves to create their own screencast presentations for virtual reports, class presentations, and more.

Click to learn more about what Screencastify can do for educators and students alike.

Helping educators accomplish more, create visible success and inspire new ways of teaching.

Creating Animations in PowerPoint to Support Student Learning and Engagement

Key takeaways.

• Judicious use of animation can support teaching goals and further engage students in classroom presentations.
• PowerPoint, although one of the most frequently used presentation programs around, is rarely used to its full advantage by faculty.
• Creating custom animations in PowerPoint is easy with a few pointers and some practice.

Multimedia software has become an essential part of today's teaching and learning process. While many interactive multimedia software programs certainly exist, PowerPoint is one the most widely available and used programs today. In the late 1990s, several studies indicated that students found PowerPoint-based lectures more interesting than traditional lectures. 1 Whether used for teacher-led presentations or student-led projects such as digital storytelling, reports, or instructional gaming, presentation software can help organize and enhance the delivery of content across curriculum areas while accommodating students of various ages, cultures, and learning styles. PowerPoint format is easy to edit and can be adapted to any student population. 2 Burns pointed out that faculty can master the basics of PowerPoint within an hour. 3 Most faculty, however, don't use the program's features beyond creating basic slides with text, transitions, clip art or pictures, and hyperlinks. They do not take advantage of the many other capabilities, such as Custom Animation, in designing their presentations. This article explores how creating custom animations can support teaching goals and further engage students in a presentation. Illustrated are some step-by-step animation techniques and design considerations for creating effective presentations. Figure 1 demonstrates an animated, interactive science timeline.

Figure 1. Science Timeline

Animations Can Engage Student Interest

The use of animations is becoming increasingly widespread in many educational presentations. A fairly extensive literature argues that animations are more effective than static sequential images for teaching dynamic events. 4 Animations when designed properly can attract and maintain interest in a presentation.

Lowe 5 proposed potential advantages of animated graphics over static graphics with regard to the cognitive aspects of learning. Compared with static graphics, animated graphics can be:

• More informative
• Closer to the characteristics of the subject matter
• More explicit
• More explanatory

Lowe also warned, however, that animated graphics are not intrinsically superior to static graphics. Without proper educational design, animations can be inferior to static graphics.

Creating Effective Animations for Teaching

PowerPoint is a versatile presentation tool that can be used as a multimodal presentation to accommodate intelligences or as an advanced organizer to present content to learners. 6 Multimedia software is also effective at communicating audio-visual materials, charts, and graphic elements into ideas, 7 and much documented research addresses how students learn with PowerPoint. Various researchers 8 have studied how PowerPoint has been used in different educational settings, and they presented another means to vary content to retain learners' concentration and interest.

Szabo and Hastings 9 reported that a majority of students believed that PowerPoint lectures are more interesting and attention-capturing than traditional lectures. Much research has indicated that as the popularity of PowerPoint presentations increases, the studies concerning the pedagogical results of using this presentation tool increase:

• Selimoglu and Arsoy 10 indicated that teaching with PowerPoint presentations enforces learning effectiveness by stimulating students' imagery systems.
• Harrison 11 affirms that PowerPoint encourages students' learning by implementing accessible and inclusive presenting techniques.
• Perry and Perry 12 found that students preferred to attend a class that uses multimedia presentations.

However, PowerPoint is only a tool. Of itself, it will not improve learning or engage students in the learning process. It is up to the instructor to systematically design and present interactive presentations. The following design consideration guidelines 13 address creating effective presentations:

• Target audience : Define the audience. This enables the instructor to select appropriate vocabulary, graphics, and Internet links for the PowerPoint presentation.
• Objectives : Write specific objectives for the PowerPoint presentation.
• Restrict the number of key topics (objectives) to no more than five per presentation.
• Be consistent and minimalist with effects and transitions.
• Do not use too many slides. An average of 12–20 per presentation is a good guideline.
• Generally use no more than seven bullet lines on a slide, excluding a heading or use a short, three-sentence paragraph. Use key phrases and include only essential information.
• For bullet points, use the 7 × 7 Rule: one main idea per line with no more than seven words per line and no more than seven lines per slide.
• Use a font and a font size that are appropriate and clearly legible. Arial or Verdana is recommended for clarity, while a font such as Comic Sans can be used in less formal presentations. Do not use gimmicky fonts, and do not mix fonts.
• Use no font smaller than 22 points.
• Do not use capitals except for occasional emphasis — they are harder to read than lowercase letters.
• Avoid italicized fonts — they are difficult to read quickly.
• Check spelling and grammar.
• Use graphics where appropriate, but do not overuse them. No more than two graphics per slide is a good general rule.
• Limit the number of colors on a single slide, and keep colors consistent.
• Use sound and video from within PowerPoint very sparingly; sound rarely adds anything, and if not used tastefully, sound effects can become irritating.
• Use backgrounds that enable the audience to read the text with ease. Dark text on a light background is best. Patterned backgrounds can reduce readability of text.
• Use a slide menu and buttons to navigate your presentation.
• Do not read from your slides. The content of slides is for the audience.
• Do not speak to your slides. Many presenters face the direction of their presentation rather than their audience.

These tips and more are available at the following websites:

• Ellen Finkelstein.com
• PowerPoint in the Classroom
• TechRepublic — 10 Slide Design Tips
• About.com — 10 Tips

PowerPoint Custom Animations

Designing an animation in PowerPoint to contain a number of multimedia elements, including text, graphics, and sound, can add interest and excitement for students learning a particular concept. The Custom Animation feature in PowerPoint provides a list of effects that users can apply to objects such as pictures, text, and other graphics to animate them during a slide show. Whether the user adds a music soundtrack to create a certain mood or different sound effects to reinforce key points, they will further capture the audience's attention and reinforce the message.

When students see still pictures meant to represent animated content, they are challenged with the cognitive task of having to "mentally animate" the content matter. However, well-designed animations can eliminate this mental activity, allowing learners to focus on the educational activity, which in turn leads to a concrete learning experience. 14 Presenters should take care not to use animation for the sake of animation, however, as it can be very distracting. To be instructionally sound, any animation should be tied to an instructional objective, with the goal of making the concept being taught concrete. There are many ways to design an animation slide for specific content, but a well-designed animation slide should include: a title, information on the topic, animation to reinforce the concept, and a hyperlink to additional information on the topic. See Figure 2 for an example.

Figure 2. PowerPoint Slide with Key Elements

Creating Animations in PowerPoint

PowerPoint 2007 has more than 100 preset animations and even more animations that can be customized using Motion Paths. The Custom Animation task pane has four major categories of effects that can be used to create an animation to reinforce a concept. These effects include Entrance , Emphasis , Exit , and Motion Paths .

Creating animations requires some practice in working with the animation effects. There are some great PowerPoint animation sites, such as PowerPoint Heaven , that showcase and include tutorials for PowerPoint animations. I created some animation examples to showcase some animation techniques that can be created using the Custom Animation feature in PowerPoint, along with step-by-step tutorials on how they were created. (See " Animation Examples " for tutorials on achieving these effects.) Other examples using animations include PowerPoint quizzes and timelines . Figure 3 provides an example of an animated PowerPoint quiz about the moon, and Figure 1 above shows a timeline.

Figure 3. Moon Quiz

This article explored how PowerPoint animations can serve as an effective teaching tool. Using animations in teaching can increase student interest and motivation while illustrating concepts and procedures in a more easily understood way. Students have many learning styles, thus animations provide another modality to actively engage the learner. Although poorly designed animations can be distractions in a presentation, properly designed animations can reinforce and enhance the ideas and concepts being taught. When tied to lesson objectives, animations have the potential to create high-quality learning environments that actively engage the learner, thereby promoting deep learning.

• Richard J. Harknett and Craig T. Cobane, "Introducing Instructional Technology to International Relations," Political Science and Politics , vol. 30, no. 3 (September 1997), pp. 496–500; and Roy B. Lowry , " Electronic Presentation of Lectures : The Effect Upon Student Performance," University Chemistry Education , vol. 3, no. 1 (1999), pp. 18–21.
• Kathy Patten, " PowerPoint… Why I Assign It and Why You Should Too! " The Book Report , March 1, 2001, pp. 41–82.
• Mary Burns, " Just Right: Rethinking the How and Why of Technology Instruction ," Ubiquity , vol. 6, no. 8 (March 2005).
• Chien Yu and Mariah L. Smith, "PowerPoint: Is It an Answer to Interactive Classrooms?" International Journal of Instructional Media , vol. 35, no. 3 (2008), pp. 271–280; E. Pollock, P. Chandler, and J. Sweller, " Assimilating Complex Information ," Learning and Instruction , vol. 12, no. 1 (February 2002), pp. 61–86; and Barbara Tversky, Julie Bauer Morrison, and Mireille Betrancourt, "Animation: Can It Facilitate?" International Journal of Human-Computer Studies , vol. 57, no. 4 (2002), pp. 247–262.
• Richard Lowe, " Beyond 'Eye-Candy': Improving Learning with Animations ," Apple University Consortium, 2001.
• Catharina F. de Wet, "Beyond Presentations: Using PowerPoint as an Effective Instructional Tool," Gifted Child Today , vol. 29, no. 4 (2006), pp. 29–39.
• Victor Matheson, Dawn Abt-Perkins, and Diane Snedden, " Making PowerPoint Interactive with Hyperlinks ," poster session presented at the annual American Economic Association Convention, Atlanta, GA, January 2002.
• Robert A. Bartsch and Kristi M. Cobern, "Effectiveness of PowerPoint Presentations in Lectures," Computers & Education , vol. 41, no. 1 (June 2003), pp. 77–86; and Vonnette Austin-Wells, Teena Zimmerman, and Graham J. McDougall Jr., "An Optimal Delivery Format for Presentations Targeting Older Adults," Educational Gerontology , vol. 29 (June–July 2003), pp. 493–501.
• Attila Szabo and Nigel Hastings, "Using IT in the Undergraduate Classroom: Should We Replace the Blackboard with PowerPoint? Computers & Education , vol. 35, no. 3 (November 2000), pp. 175–187.
• Seval Kardes Selimoglu and Aylin Poroy Arsoy, " The Effect of PowerPoint Preferences of Students on Their Performance : A Research in Anadolu University," Turkish Online Journal of Distance Education , vol. 10, no. 1 (2009), pp. 113–129.
• Sue Harrison, "Enhancing Teaching and Learning Practice: The Accessibility Essentials of Microsoft PowerPoint," Psychology Network Newsletter, vol. 38, no. 9 (September 2006), p. 10.
• Timothy T. Perry and Leslie Anne Perry, "University Students' Attitudes Towards Multimedia Presentations," British Journal of Educational Technology , vol. 29, no. 4 (1998), pp. 375–377.
• Yu and Smith, "PowerPoint: Is It an Answer to Interactive Classrooms?"
• Lowe, "Beyond 'Eye-Candy'."

© 2009 Michael Ruffini. The text of this article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 license .

Animation Examples

Animations created by Michael Ruffini.

Text Pinwheel

The "Text Pinwheel" is a text effect that can be used to bring attention to a title or concept.

Tutorial for Text Pinwheel

Moon Animation

The moon animation is an animation showing the moon's rotation.

Tutorial for moon animation

Countdown Clock and Rocket Launch

The "Countdown Clock" simulates a countdown clock using many animation features in the PowerPoint Custom animation pane.

Tutorial for Countdown Clock and Rocket Launch

Scrolling Ticker

The "Scrolling Ticker" animation demonstrates how a "ticker" can be used in a PowerPoint Presentation.

Tutorial for Scrolling Ticker

Naval Postgraduate School

Where Science Meets the Art of Warfare

New Student Orientation - 2024 Summer

Events at nps.

2024 Summer Quarter

Tuesday, 2 July 2024 Naval Postgraduate School Registrar 1 University Circle, Monterey, CA 93943 Monday-Friday 0900-1600

Congratulations and welcome to the Naval Postgraduate School. If you have not yet received your Welcome Aboard Letter, please check the email address you provided on your application.

For more information, please contact the NPS Registrar at (831) 656-2591.

• Open access
• Published: 27 June 2024

The feasibility and usability of mixed reality teaching in a hospital setting based on self-reported perceptions of medical students

• Michael Johnston 1 ,
• Megan O’Mahony 2 ,
• Niall O’Brien 3 ,
• Murray Connolly 4 ,
• Gabriella Iohom 5 ,
• Mohsin Kamal 1 ,
• Ahmed Shehata 1 &
• George Shorten 5  

BMC Medical Education volume  24 , Article number:  701 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

104 Accesses

Metrics details

Clinical teaching during encounters with real patients lies at the heart of medical education. Mixed reality (MR) using a Microsoft HoloLens 2 (HL2) offers the potential to address several challenges: including enabling remote learning; decreasing infection control risks; facilitating greater access to medical specialties; and enhancing learning by vertical integration of basic principles to clinical application. We aimed to assess the feasibility and usability of MR using the HL2 for teaching in a busy, tertiary referral university hospital.

This prospective observational study examined the use of the HL2 to facilitate a live two-way broadcast of a clinician-patient encounter, to remotely situated third and fourth year medical students. System Usability Scale (SUS) Scores were elicited from participating medical students, clinician, and technician. Feedback was also elicited from participating patients. A modified Evaluation of Technology-Enhanced Learning Materials: Learner Perceptions Questionnaire (mETELM) was completed by medical students and patients.

This was a mixed methods prospective, observational study, undertaken in the Day of Surgery Assessment Unit. Forty-seven medical students participated. The mean SUS score for medical students was 71.4 (SD 15.4), clinician (SUS = 75) and technician (SUS = 70) indicating good usability. The mETELM Questionnaire using a 7-point Likert Scale demonstrated MR was perceived to be more beneficial than a PowerPoint presentation (Median = 7, Range 6–7). Opinion amongst the student cohort was divided as to whether the MR tutorial was as beneficial for learning as a live patient encounter would have been (Median = 5, Range 3–6). Students were positive about the prospect of incorporating of MR in future tutorials (Median = 7, Range 5–7). The patients’ mETELM results indicate the HL2 did not affect communication with the clinician (Median = 7, Range 7–7). The MR tutorial was preferred to a format based on small group teaching at the bedside (Median = 6, Range 4–7).

Conclusions

Our study findings indicate that MR teaching using the HL2 demonstrates good usability characteristics for providing education to medical students at least in a clinical setting and under conditions similar to those of our study. Also, it is feasible to deliver to remotely located students, although certain practical constraints apply including Wi-Fi and audio quality.

Peer Review reports

“He who studies medicine without books sails an uncharted sea, but he who studies medicine without patients does not go to sea at all.” William Osler [ 1 ] . The value placed on medical teaching which directly involves patients is widely recognised by teachers and students. The value is attributed to the role it plays in situating learning in the students’ future workplace and to the opportunity to develop understanding of the relevance of basic science to clinical care (vertical integration) [ 2 ]. However, in many undergraduate medical programmes, the amount of time spent in teaching “at the bedside” has declined [ 2 ]. Reasons include the more rapid turnover of patients in hospital and improved forms of diagnostic tests.

In the light of the Covid 19 pandemic, the infection control risk of bringing students to the bedside has become a significant consideration, alongside the additional strain placed on the precious resource of personal protective equipment. Other considerations include the increasing requirement to provide remote learning and the environmental and wellbeing benefits of reducing the number of journeys medical students are required to undertake to attend clinical teaching. The centralisation of medical services has also led to medical students not having uniform exposure to all specialities. Clinical teaching with real patients in clinical tutorials lies at the heart of health professional education [ 3 ]. It provides students with opportunities to practice their history taking; physical examination; and communication skills [ 4 ]. In the discipline of anaesthesia, clinical judgement during preoperative assessment is critically important to minimise risks of rare events such as anaphylaxis [ 5 ] or difficulty in airway management [ 6 ].

Given the advances in technology-enhanced learning, the opportunity exists to support medical students in accessing and learning from clinical encounters by integrating selected artefacts to build and extend mental models from ‘bench-to-bedside’.

Mixed reality (MR) has been utilised in a diverse range of fields, including healthcare. There is now a body of work specifically looking at the applications of the Microsoft HoloLens 2 (HL2), a head-mounted display, MR Device within healthcare education.

The HL2 has been used intraoperatively to displaying complex holographic three-dimensional models based on patients’ pre-operative Computerised Tomography scans and aid surgical navigation [ 7 ]. A study by Bala et al. demonstrated the ability to use the HL2 to deliver a remote access MR ward round, in a real clinical setting and that this was found to be educationally effective and feasible [ 8 ]. Mill et al. also demonstrated live streaming of ward rounds using the HL2 and found the patient and student experience to be good but highlighted issues such as background noise, steep learning curves and Wi-Fi connectivity as barriers to delivery [ 9 ]. Wolf et al. utilised the HL2 to teach medical students the highly technical skill of extracorporeal membrane oxygenation cannulation; the MR group performed significantly fewer errors when compared with the conventional teaching group [ 10 ].

MR refers to a rendered experience blending the physical and digital world. The term mixed reality was first coined in a 1994 paper and defined as merging of real and virtual worlds somewhere along the virtuality continuum which connects completely real environments to completely virtual ones’ [ 11 ] . The blending of real and digital worlds allows users to interact and manipulate with real and virtual elements concurrently.

MR offers a potential solution to a number of challenges in medical education including providing students with meaningful access to patients, across different clinical specialties; infection control issues; and the provision of remote learning. Furthermore, it may serve as an effective means of supporting students in applying previously learned principles to the care of a specific patient who is present.

MR allows for the inclusion of digital artefacts into a real environment. This may offer potential to improve student learning by displaying three dimensional models; overlaying digital artefacts over live patients; utilising gestures and interactive features to highlight information to the learner. Combining audio-visual information may also reduce the cognitive load burden increasing learning efficacy [ 12 ].

Importantly, a MR supported clinical encounter may be used to enable students to associate their learning of basic scientific principles (for instance in anatomy or physiology) to relevant clinical applications; this could provide a valuable addition to teaching approaches integrating basic science knowledge and understanding with specific clinical challenges [ 13 , 14 ].

The HL2 allows a live clinical encounter can be streamed to remote users. The HL2 is head-mounted device with a built-in camera which shows exactly what the tutor can see but with the addition of mixed reality allowing digital artefacts to be placed into the real environment. This stream of audio-visual data from the HL2 can be streamed to students situated remotely either on a single or to multiple devices. Bidirectional sound allows for the students, clinician, and patient to communicate in a manner similar to conventional bedside teaching. There is no upper limit on the number of students who could join the scenario remotely, unlike with conventional bedside teaching where only small groups are realistic. MR teaching may also uniform access and exposure to all specialities for medical students.

Given the inevitable challenges of introducing a new technology into the already complex healthcare environment we set out to examine the usability and feasibility of using the HL2 for teaching medical students. We examined this question using a prospective, observational, mixed methods study design. The tutorials were designed around clinical encounters with real patients during their perioperative pathway, and within a busy tertiary referral hospital.

Methodology

The study was approved by the Clinical Research Ethics Committee of the Cork Teaching Hospitals. All patient and student participants provided written informed consent prior to participating in the study. All participants were aged over 18 years and deemed to have capacity to consent prior to enrolment in the study.

Student participants

This study examined the use of the HL2 to facilitate a live two-way broadcast of a clinician patient encounter, utilising MR features of the HL2 device, which was streamed to Fourth Year Direct Entry and Third Year Graduate Entry University College Cork medical students. Medical students were invited to participate in the study which took place during their one-week placement in anaesthesia and intensive care medicine. Those invited to participate constituted a convenience sample as they were members of eight student groups (group size 3–10 students) scheduled to undertake this attachment from January 13th to March 31st 2023. The study took place in Cork University Hospital, a busy tertiary referral teaching hospital. All patients who participated were located on the Day of Surgery Assessment (DOSA) Unit having had their day case surgery completed. Background data was collected on medical students including age and previous degree level qualifications.

Technical set-up

The tutorials took place on a once weekly basis from January to March 2023 ( n  = 8). All tutorials were delivered by a clinician investigator (MJ) and all sessions were facilitated by another investigator (NB). NB had significant prior experience with MR including specific experience with the HL2 Device.

NB facilitated the audio and visual connection between the clinical encounter and the tutorial room. MJ underwent informal training of how to use the Microsoft HoloLens 2 which took approximately 8 h to gain a working knowledge and an appreciation of the hand gestures required for smooth operation (comprising 4 h Microsoft remote assistance).

MJ wore the HL2 as a head mounted device and was face to face with the patient. The software package Microsoft Remote Assist alongside Microsoft Teams was used to enable a live two-way broadcast to the remote environment where the medical students were situated. The Cork University Hospital institutional Wi-Fi was used to transmit the broadcast. This provided a secure encrypted password protected network.

Medical students were situated remotely in a tutorial room with the facilitator NB they were able to communicate directly with the clinician via a microphone and audio was provided via an external speaker. The clinician was able to communicate with the students via an external microphone on the HL2 Device and audio was provided by Headphones attached to HL2. The students were unable to communicate directly with the patient, but the clinician could act as a conduit for any questions (see Fig.  1 ).

Physical set up of MR tutorial. Technician located with medical students in tutorial room. Clinician wearing HL2 with patient in Day of Surgery Admission Unit (DOSA)

Hardware requirements were as follows:

• Microsoft HoloLens 2

Saramonic External Microphone (HoloLens 2)

Apple 3.5mm Headphones (HoloLens 2)

BeoPlay A1 Portable Bluetooth Speaker (Tutorial Room)

Rode Compact Directional Microphone (Tutorial Room)

Laptop capable of running Microsoft Teams

Tutorial structure

At completion of their one-week anaesthesia and intensive care module the medical students attended for a mandatory three-hour tutorial comprising three sections; clinical case presentation; airway assessment; and 20 multiple choice questions on anaesthesia. Following the tutorial, the students had a 20-min break and then the students who had chosen to participate underwent the MR clinical airway tutorial. All MR tutorials were delivered by the same clinician (MJ) and the same technical facilitator (NB).

The MR tutorial involved performing a basic airway assessment of a real patient and during this process the clinician was able to populate the shared view with artefacts to illustrate key teaching points such as the Mallampati score and mandibular protrusion test (see Fig.  2 ). A picture of a patient with several features of a difficult airway was then displayed and the students were asked to highlight concerning features. The second section of the tutorial focussed on clinical anatomy, a three-dimensional rendering of the upper airway was displayed, which could be rotated; zoomed in to; and highlighted using hand gestures within the HoloLens software. Collectively the students were asked to label the anatomical features and MJ further questioned the students on the clinical relevance of the anatomy.

Artefact demonstrating Mallampati score alongside patient

The following purchases were required to facilitate the tutorials. Microsoft HoloLens 2 device (€3500), Saramonic external microphone for HoloLens 2 (€88), headphones for HoloLens 2 (€10), portable BeoPlay speaker for tutorial room (€250), Rode microphone for tutorial room (€57), annual licence cost for HoloLens (€275) n  = 2. In addition, NB provided his personal laptop, HDMI cable, and the tutorial room was equipped with a 36-inch, high-definition monitor to mirror the laptop screen onto.

The System Usability Scale (SUS) was employed to assess the usability of the MR environment for teaching. SUS were completed by all 3 of the relevant parties: medical students, teaching clinician, and technician. SUS forms were completed immediately after the tutorial.

A modified Evaluation of Technology-Enhanced Learning Materials: Learner Perceptions Questionnaire (mETELM) was completed by the medical students and patients, which used a 7-point Likert scale. The questionnaire included questions on previous experience with mixed or virtual reality; feasibility data relating to visual clarity and three-way audio broadcast; and data about how the MR tutorial compared with both a conventional PowerPoint presentation and in-person bedside teaching. There was also an area for free text feedback.

Although learning efficacy attributable to the HL2 use was not formally or comprehensively assessed, we examined academic performance (based on the end of year Objective Structured Clinical Examinations results in the airway examination station) for students who attended the MR tutorial compared with those who just underwent the conventional teaching.

This was a mixed methods prospective observational study, which took place in a busy tertiary referral hospital in the Day of Surgery Assessment Unit involving real patients on their perioperative journey.

Eight clinical tutorials involving 8 separate patients took place between 13/1/23 and 31/3/23. Of a total of 53 medical students who were eligible to participate in this study (as scheduled to attend MR tutorial) 47 elected to participate having provided written informed consent. The 47 medical students comprised of 21 males and 26 females. The participants comprised 18 graduate entry third medical students (mean age = 28.5 years, SD = 3.78) and 29 Direct entry fourth year medical students (mean age = 22.3 years, SD = 0.97).

All 47 medical students fully completed the SUS and the mETELM Questionnaire. The Clinician and technician also completed the SUS.

Of the 8 patients who participated (having provided written informed consent), 7 completed the mETELM questionnaire. 1 patient did not complete the mETELM due to feeling nauseous.

Overall, a mean score of 71.4 (SD = 15.4) on the SUS was elicited from the 47 participating medical students (See Fig.  3 ). A SUS score of 68 is considered to demonstrate satisfactory usability, with a score of 68- 80.3 considered good usability and > 80.3 considered excellent usability [ 15 ]. Therefore, we can state that, in the context of our study, the medical students found the HL2 to have good usability characteristics.

SUS Score- Medical Students

The clinician/teacher (MJ) and education technician (NB) also completed the SUS (score = 75 and 70 respectively). The clinician/teacher and technician were generally positive about use of the device. The clinician teacher found the HL2 to be comfortable to wear, to provide an unrestricted field of view and have good battery life. However, he found that the process of opening up the three-dimensional airway model to be time consuming, as it involved opening Microsoft edge web browser and then opening and expanding the model, (taking approximately 30 s).

Student and patient mETELM questionnaires

The students mETELM Questionnaire responses are displayed in Fig.  4 . There was limited previous experience with MR, but significant experience with gaming consoles and computers. Audio and video quality was felt to be clear. The MR tutorial was felt to be universally more beneficial than a PowerPoint presentation and replicate a live patient encounter. The results were borderline for if the MR tutorial was as beneficial as a live patient encounter. MR seemed to support learning, and there was a positive response to further MR teaching being incorporated into future tutorials. It was felt that the tutorial did not require inappropriately high technical skills, and that MR was not a distraction from the content of the tutorial.

Students mETELM Questionnaire responses. Median and Interquartile Range displayed

The patients mETELM Questionnaire responses (see Fig.  5 ) suggest the HL2 did not affect communication with the doctor but did form a distraction to some patients. The HL2 did not make patients feel uncomfortable and they felt safe during the sessions. Interestingly, patients collectively expressed a preference for the MR supported tutorial format over small or large student group tutorials at their bedside; most patients described the MR enabled tutorials as an enjoyable experience and indicated that they would favour participating in similar tutorials again.

Patient mETELM Questionnaire responses. Median and interquartile range displayed feasibility

Overall, we found that it was feasible to deliver teaching using the HL2 in a live clinical environment, but we encountered certain significant barriers. The institutional Wi-Fi was generally acceptable for providing adequate quality audio and visual streams, but on occasion connectivity dropped and was not resumed until the laptop and HL2 had both been restarted. Our occasional attempts to record a session would significantly reduce the quality of the connection, forcing us to restart both the HL2 and laptop. Despite this we always managed to run the MR tutorials but sometimes there would be delays of up to 15 min whilst we established a good quality connection. After 2 tutorials we improved the student’s ability to communicate with the clinician with the addition of an external microphone in the tutorial room.

Prior to delivery of the teaching the clinician had to learn how to use the HL2 device, a process which took around 8 h. The technician was already familiar with the HL2 and Microsoft Teams and Remote Assist. There were significant costs in terms of hardware, software, and licensing to run MR tutorials with the HL2.

Additional findings

Representative quotes from students’ free text are on mETELM questionnaire are detailed below in Table  1 .

The medical students completed an end of year OSCE on airway examination. The OSCE was 50% related to what we taught in the HL2 tutorial and 50% related to other aspects of airway management. The interval between the HL2 tutorial and the OSCE varied significantly between students from 6 weeks to 4 months. The airway OSCE was scored out of 50. The scores for students who completed the HL2 tutorial ( n  = 47) and those who had conventional teaching only ( n  = 139) were similar (HL2 teaching- mean 45.1, SD 4.9, versus conventional teaching- mean 44.1, SD 7.0). The unpaired student t-test two tailed value was 0.58. No difference in learning efficacy was found between the HL2 group and those who underwent conventional teaching.

The most important finding of this study is that the HL2 demonstrates good usability characteristics for providing clinical education to medical students in a real clinical setting. Within the infrastructure of a busy teaching hospital and using institutional Wi-Fi, it is feasible to deliver bedside clinical teaching to a group of remotely located medical students. We propose that MR-enhanced teaching may allow for educational institutions to provide consistent and uniform access to clinical teaching.

We also found that students expressed great openness to and enthusiasm for this way of learning, both in their Questionnaire responses and at semi structured interview. This provides encouragement for future use of MR devices within the clinical space.

Our findings are broadly consistent with others which have demonstrated that that the teaching of medical students within a variety of clinical environments using MR showed good usability and feasibility characteristics and are generally acceptable to patients, students, and teachers [ 8 , 9 , 16 , 17 , 18 ]. Mill et al. highlighted some issues similar to those we experienced regarding Wi-Fi connectivity, and background noise disrupting sessions [ 9 ]. Our study results are also consistent with those of Levy et al. in that some patients preferred and felt more comfortable having a single clinician wearing a HL2 compared with having a group of healthcare professionals at the bedside [ 19 ].

A review article by McBain et al. examined the effect of using virtual, augmented and mixed reality to teach clinical anatomy to medical students using three dimensional digital models and our study showed globally similar positive findings with regards to usability and feasibility [ 20 ]. Other investigators have also noted (in the context of a clinical teaching during a pandemic) that the HL2 can facilitate ongoing delivery of clinical teaching with a lesser need for personal protective equipment use and increased safety for all [ 21 ].

Our study was relatively novel as it was implemented within a busy clinical environment with real patients on their perioperative pathway. The usability data we collected employed two different tools (SUS and mETELM) and rendered similarly positive results. We interpret that similarity as supporting the validity of our findings. Our usability dataset was elicited from the different perspectives of medical students, a clinician, patients, and a technician. (Only one patient did not complete the mETELM Questionnaire).

The ETELM instruments were designed originally by Cook et al. [ 22 ] using a combined inductive/ deductive approach and comprehensive literature review to ensure that relevant domains were captured (based on frameworks widely applied to mainstream education) and inclusion of specific items of relevance to health professionals’ education. The designers specify that the ETELM instrument is intended to be adapted to “context and situation-specific needs” [ 22 ]. We did not conduct within-study assessments of face, content, or test–retest validity of the mETELM. The risk that the information elicited using this instrument is invalid may be offset by the selection of an instrument specifically designed both for educational technology and for health professional learners.

All MR teaching was delivered by a single clinician which ensured uniformity of teaching style and approach. Three-way communication between patient, clinician and medical students allowed for communication in a similar style to in person bedside teaching. A different patient participated in each clinical tutorial leading to a diverse range of clinical findings and discussion points.

Utilising the HL2 technology to provide both a clinical tutorial involving a real patient and then progressing onto three-dimensional anatomy teaching demonstrated the capabilities of the device, utilising the basic audio-visual streaming features, with adjacent MR artefacts.

This was a relatively small study with a limited number ( n  = 47) of medical students participating. The study only focused on a single highly specific clinical domain. The study took place in one location (DOSA) in one hospital; therefore, our findings cannot necessarily be extrapolated to other hospital environments. Because the patients who participated were all elective patients on a day case surgical pathway, our findings cannot necessarily be extrapolated to patients of different backgrounds or differing degrees of acuity. We did not assess the feasibility of streaming the sessions to multiple personal devices.

Use of MR clinical teaching via a device like the HL2 is feasible and has positive usability characteristics. The feedback reported in this study indicates that MR offers potential for technology enhanced learning and specifically to improve vertical integration within an undergraduate medical curriculum.

There are many potential future applications of MR technology within the healthcare setting. These may include bedside teaching in more diverse environments, sharing three dimensional models during surgery, anatomy teaching including specific applications within regional anaesthesia.

One possibility to scale a MR enabled learning resource would be a library of MR teaching sessions which students would be able to access at their own discretion to allow for uniform access to clinical teaching and a potentially unlimited number of students to participate. This set up would be enhanced further by collecting engagement data from students and embedding pop quizzes into the tutorials. Allowing students to use their own devices to join sessions clearly offers practicality benefits to the students and environmental benefits but raises questions regarding data protection and maintaining confidentiality.

Although we do not provide here enough information to provide a needs analysis for scaling up or transferring the type of mixed reality teaching described to other institutions, our results indicate that faculty training, suitably chosen hardware and software, secure and reliable Wi-Fi will be pre-requisites.

The HL2 has a training curve associated with basic competence and an interesting area of research would be to ascertain how long it would take a group of clinicians to become competent to deliver a clinical tutorial using the device. With a larger group of trained clinicians, a more diverse range of subjects could be delivered using MR.

Our results point to the likelihood of employing MR to apply basic science principles to clinical practice (including diagnosis and management decisions). It will be important to examine whether this potential can be realised without distracting or overwhelming the learner. Further work on this question is warranted.

The most important finding of this study is that MR supported teaching using the HL2 demonstrates good usability characteristics for providing clinical education to medical students at least in a clinical setting and under circumstances similar to those we describe here. Within the infrastructure of a busy teaching hospital and using institutional Wi-Fi it is feasible to deliver teaching related to clinical encounters to remotely located medical students, although certain practical constraints apply including the quality of Wi-Fi and audio connections.

Availability of data and materials

Any data used by the authors can be made available if requested. Please contact corresponding author Michael Johnston if required.

Abbreviations

• Mixed reality

modified Evaluation of Technology-Enhanced Learning Materials: Learner Perceptions Questionnaire

System Usability Scale

Day of Surgery Assessment Unit

University College Cork

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This study was supported by UCC Dept of Anaesthesia.

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Department of Anaesthesia, University College Cork, Cork, Ireland

Niall O’Brien

Coombe Women’s and Infants University Hospital, Dublin, Ireland

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Contributions

All authors contributed in a meaningful way to generating the manuscript. MJ was lead author, led the organisation, planning and data collection, and led all MR tutorials. NB acted as a facilitator for all sessions and contributed significantly to the technical set up and planning of the study. GS had the overview of the whole project and how it fits into previous work, GS also contributed significantly to the manuscript. MM conducted the semi structured interviews and contributed to the manuscript. MC provided guidance based on his experience of using HL2. GI, AS and MK contributed to facilitating the tutorials.

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Correspondence to Michael Johnston .

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The study was approved by the Clinical Research Ethics Committee of the Cork Teaching Hospitals and the guidance and regulations offered by the Clinical Research Ethics Committee of the Cork Teaching Hospitals and Helsinki declaration were followed. All patient and student participants provided written informed consent prior to inclusion in the study. All participants were aged over 18 years and deemed to have capacity to consent prior to enrolment in the study.

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All patient and student participants provided written informed consent prior to inclusion in the study. It was explicitly stated that the aim of the study was to publish the results in a medical journal but there would be no identifiable patient or student data. With relation to the image in Fig.  2 written informed consent was obtained from the participant for the publication of the information/images in an open access publication.

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Johnston, M., O’Mahony, M., O’Brien, N. et al. The feasibility and usability of mixed reality teaching in a hospital setting based on self-reported perceptions of medical students. BMC Med Educ 24 , 701 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-024-05591-z

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LinkedIn, CV, Resume: CommLab Drop-In Workshops

Wednesday, July 3 4 p.m. EDT Room 13, International Village, 1155 Tremont St., Boston, MA 02120 or virtual

Every Wednesday, we host empowering LinkedIn, CV, and resume workshops. This collaborative space offers valuable advice and peer feedback to enhance your online profile and professional presence.

Poster Design and Presentation: CommLab Drop-In Workshops

Thursday, July 4 5 p.m. EDT Virtual

We will host drop-in workshops for poster design and presentation, focusing on crafting the best visual communication of your research and telling students’ research stories. Techniques will be discussed to help implement communication strategies to successfully showcase your work. Whether you’re just starting off or refining your final poster, we are here to assist you.

Black Feminist Book Club

Thursday, July 18 noon EDT Virtual

We are hosting our annual summer Black Feminist Book Club, presented by the Africana Studies program. This year’s book is “Fledgling,” by Octavia E. Butler, and we will feature guest speaker and moderator Dr. Susana Morris. The first 20 people to register get a free book.

Crafting Compelling Presentations

Monday, July 22 2 p.m. EDT Virtual

Join GLS as we explore ways in which you can design a presentation that is engaging, persuasive and memorable. During this interactive workshop, we will discuss presentation fundamentals, visual communication, delivery, content and more. Whether you are a student, a professional or an entrepreneur, mastering the art of presentations is essential for conveying your ideas with impact and confidence.

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