Let’s be honest. Most teachers are busy enough just trying to remember if it’s an “A” or “B” day, whether they’ve had lunch, and what kid just walked out the door with the class snake. We don’t have time to channel our inner graphic designer when prepping slides. That’s where Slidesgo struts into the room like the cool kid with the perfect fonts, cohesive color schemes, and that unmistakable air of “I had time for this.”
This week, let’s talk about Slidesgo: your not-so-secret weapon to make presentations that look like you hired a design intern, even if you made them during your lunch duty with one hand holding a cheese stick.
🧪 What is Slidesgo?
Slidesgo is a treasure trove of free Google Slides and PowerPoint templates, designed for folks who want to look good without selling their soul to Canva Premium. It’s part of the Freepik family (you know, the royalty-free design resource haven), and it brings professional, themed, ready-to-edit slide decks straight to your fingertips.
Think of it like this: You’re bringing dinner to the potluck. You could make your own pasta salad and hope for the best, or you could pick up something pre-made from the fancy grocery store, plate it, and get compliments all night. Slidesgo is the fancy grocery store.
🔍 Features That Make Teachers Smile
1. Templates by Theme & Subject
Want a “Back to School” slideshow with crayons and smiling cartoon pencils? Got it. Need a slick-looking deck for your 8th grade AI ethics discussion? Done. There are hundreds of templates sorted by categories like Education, Business, and even “Aesthetic.” Yes, aesthetic.
2. Google Slides or PowerPoint – Dealer’s Choice
You can download your masterpiece in either format. Slidesgo doesn’t judge.
3. Customizable Everything
Fonts, colors, layouts, images, you can tweak it all. Or you can change absolutely nothing and still look like you tried really hard.
4. Icons, Graphs, and Maps, Oh My!
Many templates come packed with editable infographics, icons, and maps so you can visualize data like a pro, or at least pretend to.
5. Free & Premium Options
Most of the templates are free, but there is a premium tier if you want even more options or can’t resist the temptation of templates named things like “Magenta Galaxy Vision.”
🧠 The AI Behind the Tool
While Slidesgo itself isn’t powered by generative AI, its parent company, Freepik, is increasingly dabbling in AI-powered search and image generation. Behind the scenes, Slidesgo likely uses algorithms to surface trending templates, optimize search results, and recommend slide packs that match your theme (like when you type “data literacy” and get a visual masterpiece with charts that scream I’m a tech-savvy educator).
Slidesgo doesn’t require you to upload student data, and there’s no creepy AI watching you rearrange your text boxes, which means student privacy and ethics are generally safe here.
🏫 How Can Teachers Use It?
→ The First Day of School
Roll into class with a custom “Welcome to 7th Grade Science” deck that looks like it came from a startup’s onboarding session.
→ Parent Night or IEP Meetings
Use a Slidesgo template to impress families and administrators without adding three extra hours to your prep time. A clean, organized visual can help ground a challenging conversation.
→ Student Projects
Encourage students to present their projects with Slidesgo templates. It raises the bar from Comic Sans on a black background to presentations that look like they were made by future CEOs.
→ PD Presentations
Because when you’re presenting to your colleagues, you want them to remember your brilliant instructional strategies, not the mismatched clipart you pulled from 2004.
✅ Pros
- Saves time (AKA: You can still go home before sunset)
- Looks good without effort
- Perfect for both teacher and student use
- No login required for most free downloads
- Giant library of themes and styles
⚠️ Cautions
- Some templates are Premium only so if you fall in love with “Retro Chic Floral Explosion,” prepare to pay up.
- Fonts may need to be downloaded separately if you’re a stickler for the exact match.
- Too many choices seriously, you may find yourself down a rabbit hole. You searched for “science,” and now you’re wondering if your entire life should have been themed in “Minimalist Neutrals.”
🎓 Teacher Tip
Once you choose a Slidesgo template, make a copy and strip it down to the essentials. Templates are loaded with extra slides: title pages, icon sets, alternative layouts. These are great, but they can overwhelm your students (and maybe your own brain). Keep what you need, delete the fluff, and roll on.
Also? Teach your students to do the same. “Professional Presentation Skills” isn’t just for future business majors; it’s digital literacy gold.
🪄 Final Verdict
Slidesgo is the classroom equivalent of showing up with coordinated bulletin boards AND a working laminator. It’s sharp, it’s easy, and it’ll make people think you slept more than 5 hours last night.
So next time you need to present something, whether to your students, your admin, or that class hamster adoption committee, let Slidesgo be your design sidekick. You bring the brains, they bring the beauty.
See you next Tuesday, when we tackle another tech tool that might just save your sanity (or at least give you 20 more minutes to drink your cold coffee in peace).
If you’ve found my resources helpful and want to support a fellow educator, you can now ☕ buy me a coffee at:
👉 https://ko-fi.com/paulajohnsontech
Paula Johnson Tech 
Leave a comment