Club Penguin Zentation

Here's yet another online presentation option, this one called Zentation. It combines video with PowerPoint slides, although I'm going to experiment with other options besides PPT since I am trying to be cured of that particular disease. I first learned about Zentation at the Presentation Zen site that I frequent. The linked post has a good example of an embedded Zentation created by Guy Kawasaki. I've never been a big fan of talking head videos, but seeing a skilled presenter on stage working an audience is not a bad way to go, and the slides add very much to the presentation allowing you to pretty much see the presentation the way the audience saw it. You can view the Kawasaki presentation full-screen here.

It seems to me that this has the potential to become too busy. Video on the left and very busy slides on the right would be a bit much for most people. I think it would be very important to have minimal slides that add to the video experience, but not detract from it.

From their FAQ page: "Zentation offers the richest media on the web for video and presentations. Zentation provides a way to synchronize video uploaded to Google Video with your PowerPoint. Zentation's patent pending technology allows for the easy synchronization of your video and graphics without any technical knowledge."

I created a free account and made my first zentation last night. It took me about an hour or so since I didn't have any PowerPoint slides for the Club Penguin video that I made with my son, so I took some quick screenshots and tried to make the slides somewhat relevant to what he was talking about on the video.

You can see my first effort (full-screen) here. I've used the video before here, but I like it so much that I've used it again for this experiment. There are two different embed sizes provided after you create a zentation. Below is the small one since this blog template does not have much real estate from left to right. The other one would be more appropriate for wider blogs or other web pages, such as inside an online course.


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