people using PowerPoint in a boring way bore people!
We have all been guilty of delivering a boring PowerPoint: screens filled with too much--and too small--text, and then reading off the screen.
It is not PowerPoint's fault.
PowerPoint is simply a tool; a tool that we can use for good or for evil, to engage or to bore.
There are many ways to use PowerPoint to engage people that do not use technology per se...you can vary the flow/rhythm of your presentation, not read from the screen, and use PowerPoint as a shared focus to then have your audience do activities such as problem-solving, Think-Pair-Share, small group work, journaling, etc. And there are also technologies you can integrate into PowerPoint to increase engagement, such as videos, games, polls, and quizzes.
One of the programs that does this is Slido. Slido can be used to add live polls, Q&A, quizzes, and word clouds to PowerPoint, Google Slides, Zoom, Teams, and more. Slido is a commercial product (i.e., the full program costs money), but there is a robust free tier with up to 3 polls per Slido, and basic Q&A, with up to 100 participants.
Here is an overview of Slido by Russell Stannard.
(click through to YouTube if you want to turn on captions.)
NOTE: Russell Stannard has an active Teacher Training Videos YouTube channel where he demonstrates and discusses technologies that can be used to support learning. His focus is K-12 education--specifically language education--but many of these technologies can be used to support adult learners, too.
