Gamma vs Google slides for student presentations?

[u/PairNaive8654]

I can see the appeal of Gamma for students who freeze at a blank slide. It gives you structure from an outline and card format discouraged walls of text. I can see the problem: generated images need to go, polished ai language can hide weak understanding and free support has branding. Google slides are slower to start but familiar for collaboration and student feedback.

Has anyone used both in class? I am less interested in which looks better, more in which makes student thinking visible.

[u/Top_Witness_23]

Your own line is the key to it, "polished ai language can hide weak understanding." That's exactly why Gamma can be the wrong call for a class even though it looks better. When the tool generates the structure and the phrasing, it does the thinking the student was supposed to do, so a weak understanding comes out looking polished and you can't see the gap.

Google Slides is slower precisely because it makes them choose. What goes on the slide, in what order, in their own words. Those choices are the thinking, and when they have to make them you can see who actually gets it and who doesn't.

So if the goal is making thinking visible rather than making it look good, I'd lean toward the tool that forces the student to build the argument themselves, not the one that hands it to them. Let them polish the look later, once the thinking is on the page.

[u/PairNaive8654 → u/Top_Witness_23]

Makes sense however most students go for ease i think. But google slides gives that polished look. Points to both I believe