At school, we already use Educreations and Haiku Deck (I LOVE Haiku Deck!!!!!), and I would say both are pretty much "staple" apps for presentation creation.
I haven't heard of Deck Slideshow before now, and as I searched for it, I also saw one called Flowboard, which was free....so I'm trying both.
Deck Slideshow Presentations:
Easy enough to figure out, and some fun themes to choose from (a bunch are in-app purchases though, though a few are free downloads ). When I wanted to add a picture to a slide, the tools for working with the photos were complicated/didn't work. The cropping tool seemed to work, but I couldn't save the crop. There is also an "image caption" slider that I couldn't figure out.....and the other two buttons didn't do anything? Kids would get frustrated with this and quit right away.....and go back to Haiku Deck. After watching the three-minute tutorial on their website, I at least was able to see how you export (these weren't super intuitive in the app)....though I never saw how to "publish". This would be great for persuasive presentations, but for my level of students, probably not a favorite. Needs to be simpler. I deleted it right when I was done testing it.
Flowboard:
Flowboard required an account to get started, which was a bit annoying, but I get it. Connecting with Facebook was an option, but I decided to create an actual account (because my students would have to do it this way at school). All I needed to start was a username, email address, and password. I did the "tutorial" at the beginning and it took all of 45 seconds. Pretty simple to use...I hope.
So, the first thing I did was choose a theme....twenty one choices. All free. I chose "Scrapbook". Adding slides was easy, and let me choose from a variety of templates each time. Working with/adding images was simple (though I had to get used to the "two taps" way of working with elements). Making a flowboard was easy.....when I got to "sharing", I saw the catch. If you want to keep things "public", the free app is fine. You can share to Facebook, Twitter, email, etc. To restrict or make private, you need to be "premium" OR whomever you send it to has to have an account as well. As long as I kept my presentation "public", I could easily share via e-mail or via the web address it created when I published.
Using, editing, working flowboard was easy. Sharing was simple.....just a WAY more intuitive app, which is what my students (and teachers) need. I think this would be a nice addition to our iPads.....kids could decide if this fits them or if Haiku Deck is a better option.
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