Classrooms
Check understanding with a quick quiz, collect exit questions at the end of a lesson, and let shy students ask without raising a hand.
- Home
- Interactive presentations
Interactive presentations
An interactive presentation is a talk the audience takes part in. People join from their own phones, then vote in polls, answer quizzes, add words to a cloud and ask questions, and their answers appear on the slides as they arrive.
Updated · 7 minute read
Watch the film
How an interactive presentation works
An interactive presentation runs on two screens at once: the slides on the big screen, and the audience's phones. When a slide asks something, every phone shows the question, and the answers build up on the slide in real time.
- The slides go up on the big screen, from the presenter's laptop, like any other talk.
- The audience joins. They open a short web address on their phones and type the code shown on the screen, or scan it. With a good tool there is no app to install and no account to make.
- A slide asks a question. A poll, a quiz, a word cloud, an open question. Phones show the answer buttons or a box to type in.
- Answers land live. Bars grow, a word cloud fills, questions rise as people vote for them.
- The presenter talks about what the room said. That is the moment the talk becomes a conversation.
In Joocy, every slide has these two sides. For each slide you choose what the phones show: a question, a picture, buttons, the slide itself, or simply "look up" to bring every eye back to you.
Why make a presentation interactive
Because people learn and remember more when they take part, and because a show of hands only ever hears from three people. Interactivity gives every person in the room a voice, and gives the presenter something a slide cannot: what this audience actually thinks, right now.
- Everyone answers, not just the confident few. Answering on a phone, without raising a hand or giving a name, brings in the quiet people.
- You see understanding, not nods. A two question quiz tells you whether the last ten minutes landed.
- Questions without interruptions. People send questions while you talk; the room votes the best ones up for the end.
- Attention comes back. A question every few minutes turns listeners into participants.
- You keep what the room said. Every answer is there after the talk, to read, share or follow up on.
The evidence from classrooms is strong. A review of 225 studies of university science and engineering courses found that students in lectures without active participation were 1.5 times more likely to fail (33.8% against 21.8%), and that active learning raised exam scores by about 6%.
Source: Freeman and colleagues, Active learning increases student performance in science, engineering, and mathematics, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2014.
Twelve things you can ask a room
These are the kinds of question an interactive presentation can ask, and what each one is good for. Joocy has all twelve, plus phone screens of your own in HTML.
PollPick one of a few options. The quickest way to know your room, or to decide something together.
QuizQuestions with right answers, points for each one (more for fast answers when there is a timer) and a leaderboard.
Word cloudA word each. The words the room shares grow big on the screen.
Open questionA sentence or two each, shown as a wall of answers you can moderate.
Q&AThe room sends questions and votes them up, so the best question rises to the top.
RatingA score on a scale, for feedback or for how sure people feel.
Guess a numberEveryone guesses; the spread and the average say more than any one answer.
StickersTap an animated sticker. Moods pile up in a ball pit with real physics.
Their nameNames on a wall, and in the words of later slides: "Maya, how was your year?"
PhotoA picture from the phone's camera, shown once the presenter approves it.
Voice noteA few seconds of voice, played through the room's speakers when you choose.
Sign-upPeople leave their details to get the slides or hear more after the talk.
Which question for which moment
Match the question to what you need from the room at that point in the talk. A warm up wants something easy and fun, a check wants right answers, and the end of a talk wants feedback and questions.
| When | Ask with | For example |
|---|---|---|
| The first two minutes | Word cloud | "One word for how you are arriving today?" |
| Getting to know the room | Poll | "How often do you use AI at work?" |
| After a key idea | Quiz | "Which of these three is the real example?" |
| Hearing the quiet ones | Open question | "What worries you most about this change?" |
| Deciding together | Poll | "Which project should we start with?" |
| The whole talk long | Q&A with voting | Open it at the start; answer the top questions at the end. |
| When energy dips | Stickers | "How is the energy right now?" |
| The last minute | Rating, sign-up | "How useful was this?" and "Want the slides?" |
How to make an interactive presentation
Start from the deck you already have, add a question wherever you want the room to answer, and present as usual. In Joocy it takes six steps.
- Bring your deck. Save it as a PDF from PowerPoint, Keynote or Google Slides and drop it in: every page becomes a slide that looks exactly like your file. Pictures, videos and HTML decks work too. Or start a new deck, or ask your AI to make one.
- Add the questions. Put a poll, quiz or word cloud on any slide, or between two slides. For every slide, choose what phones show.
- Rehearse once with a phone in your hand. Join your own session, answer, and see what the room will see.
- Present. The stage goes on the projector and your laptop becomes the console: notes, the next slide, the clock and the live answers. Your phone can be the clicker.
- Show the code. A join slide shows it big; after that it sits in the corner of every slide that asks something, so latecomers can still scan it.
- Keep what the room said. After the talk, every answer is saved: download a spreadsheet, JSON, or all the photos.
The full walkthrough of the console, the remote and moderation is in the presenting guide. To have Claude, ChatGPT or another AI build the deck for you, see your own AI.
Tips that make it work
Ask early, ask simply, and always talk about the answers. An interactive presentation works when the questions serve the talk, not the other way round.
- Ask in the first few minutes. The first question sets the habit: this is a room where people answer.
- One idea per question. Short questions, two to five options, words a tired person can read in a second.
- Pause and react to the results. Read out the surprising number, the funniest word, the best question. Answers nobody talks about feel ignored.
- Leave the code up while people arrive, and keep it in the corner for latecomers.
- Test on the venue's wifi. Join from your own phone in the room before people arrive.
- Keep the room safe. Leave the bad word filter on and approve photos before they show.
- Do not ask on every slide. A question every five to ten minutes keeps a room with you without turning a talk into a quiz show.
Interactive presentations for teachers, trainers, events and teams
Workshops and training
Open with a word cloud, gather examples from the room with open questions, and end with a rating so the next session gets better.
Conferences and meetups
Run Q&A with voting for a room of up to 2,000 phones, and let reactions float up the big screen during the talk.
Team meetings and all hands
Ask the questions people would never say out loud, decide things together with a poll, and keep a record of what the team said.
Still curious?
Do interactive presentations need an app?
Not with a browser based tool. In Joocy, people open joo.cy on any phone and type the code from the screen, or scan it. No app and no account.
Can I make a PowerPoint presentation interactive?
Yes. Save the PowerPoint as a PDF and bring it into Joocy: every slide stays exactly as designed, the speaker notes come along, and you add polls, quizzes and Q&A wherever you want them. Keynote and Google Slides work the same way.
How many questions should a presentation have?
A question every five to ten minutes is a good rhythm, with one in the first few minutes to set the habit. More than that and the talk turns into a quiz show; fewer and people slip back into listening.
Are the answers anonymous?
Joining Joocy needs no account, so answers are anonymous unless your deck asks for names. By default it asks only for quizzes and Q&A, so a leaderboard has names; you can also ask everyone when they join, or never. Anonymous answers are usually more honest, which is often the point.
How do I choose an interactive presentation tool?
Check six things: whether people can join without an app, whether it works with the slides you already have, the kinds of question you need, how it keeps rude answers off the screen, how it copes with weak venue wifi, and how many people it holds. Then try it once with a phone in your hand.
Your next talk, juicier
Get early accessJoining a talk? Type the code at the top.