SlideShare

SlideShare was a program that I had never heard of before. I had never used it and didn’t know of its purpose or capabilities. To test out the program and see what it was exactly about, I uploaded a PowerPoint presentation to the SlideShare account I created. The PowerPoint was written to accompany a group presentation this term (term 2, 2009) for English Curriculum and Pedagogy. I was amazed to find that the PowerPoint, when uploaded onto SlideShare, turned into a clip that I could still navigate through. I thought that this was fantastic. (This clip is also embedded into this blog so you can see what I referring to.) I was also quite excited to find that I could see other peoples public presentations on a variety of educational topics that I could use in the classroom and share with my students.

I know that I sometimes have trouble, especially when working in groups, when I have to try and send a PowerPoint to my group members for them to view it before presenting it as a group. It often takes forever to load, or it just won’t let me send it because the file is too large. I thought that SlideShare could be a way to get around these problems. I would be able to publish it on my account, then navigate my group members to the clip to view and comment on any changes they want me to make, or any additions they want put in the presentation. Ultimately it could be used as a way to communicate with my group members without the face to face contact; however they are able to see exactly what I have done and provide much needed input and feedback.

I did find however some glitches with SlideShare. When the PowerPoint presentation was converted to appear as a clip on SlideShare, it changed some elements of the formatting (moved pictures and cut off words, etc). This annoyed me slightly as I had to then go back to my original PowerPoint presentation make some changes and then reload it onto SlideShare. It just proved to me once again, that sometimes technology isn’t as convenient as we would expect or like it to be. I do however think that it is still a good, simple application to convert simple PowerPoint presentations into a more ‘video clip’ format. It would be appealing to students in the classroom (and simple for them to utilise). And because mp3 files can be uploaded and linked to the SlideShare clips (which I haven’t done for my clip in this blog, but am still working out how to do properly), it could be used as an alternative way to present information to students and for students to present to the class and teacher. Instead of physically standing up in front of a group and presenting a PowerPoint clip accompanied with a ‘speech’ (which can be daunting for anybody at the best of times), by prerecording the audio and adding it to the SlideShare clip, it instead is a much less intimidating way to present information, that is in turn, more engaging, appealing and provides more opportunities for individuality and creativity.

Visual Literacy - Picture Books

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REFERENCE

SlideShare Inc. (2009). SlideShare Present Yourself. Retrieved on August 12, 2009, from http://www.slideshare.net/