Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Webtools #26: Use Slideshare to share online PowerPoints


Slideshare (http://www.slideshare.net/) is one of my favourite free programmes. It is a way of easily presenting information online.  It could be really useful if you have a classroom blog or wiki because you could upload all sorts of different information for your class to access at home.  It is also a way for your students to present their information online if they are collaborating with another class. 

Basically, with Slideshare you can upload and share (publicly or privately) PowerPoints or PDFs for online viewing. Slideshare says you can also upload Word Documents but I haven’t tried that yet! To date I mainly use SlideShare for uploading PowerPoints and PDFs that I want to share with others. I see now that file formats that are supported by Slideshare are ppt, pps, pot, pptx, ppsx, potx, OpenOffice, and Keynote. Document formats supported are PDF, Microsoft Word, Excel sheets, OpenOffice files and text files. The maxmum allowed file size is 100 MB. There you have it! I see you can also create Slidecasts using voice but I haven't tried that yet!


SchoolNet’s Slideshare account

To show you what a Slideshare looks like I have given the links to Schoolnet’s Slideshare accounts.  Every time you make a presentation and upload it to your account, your account keeps a record of it. This account tells you a lot about your SlideShares – how many you have uploaded, who is following you, how many downloads and embeds have been made by others etc.


http://www.slideshare.net/Schoolnetsa11
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How to join Slideshare and create a Slideshare presentation

There is a really good video from Teacher Tube called 'Slideshare for teachers'  that seems to give a good explanation about Slideshare. It gives an error message when I embed it, so let me rather give the link.. It can be accessed at: http://teachertube.com/viewVideo.php?video_id=100970&title=Slideshare_for_Teachers

Before you start you need to create a PowerPoint presentation on your topic offline. This can then be converted to a PDF OR it can be uploaded just as it is to SlideShare. I also found this tutorial on YouTube giving a step-by-step approach but haven’t had a chance to evaluate it properly yet.



Why use Slideshare?
I found this Slideshare in Slideshare giving some tips on how it can be used! It lists some exciting uses that I confess I haven't yet tried - but will in the future!



Using Slideshare to include videos

There are many ways to use Slideshare that I haven’t explored yet. One of the things I HAVE used though is combining videos with a SlideShare. This works really well.  In fact, I absolutely LOVE this feature of Slideshare where you can embed YouTube videos within Slideshare instead of having a string of them one under the other on your blog page. One of the ways I did this was to gather a collection of Google tutorials - 12 videos - to see if adding a large amount of videos would work. Well, it was a lengthy affair because I first got all the URLS incorrect. You have to use the URL that shows under the video after clicking on 'Share'. Two of the videos would just not take! So, instead of redoing the whole thing and replacing my Slideshare, I thought that I would post it for now...so you could see the problem that occurs when adding the wrong URL.

http://www.slideshare.net/fionabeal/all-things-google-a-collection-of-tutorials


Uses of SlideShare for teachers

1. Have you ever plugged your flash drive into a laptop, opened a PowerPoint presentation and it doesn't work? Have your students ever done the same thing and then been relieved that they can get out of presenting? Well, if your PowerPoint is uploaded to Slideshare you’ll never have that problem! Before I give a Conference presentation or do a workshop at a school I upload the PowerPoint to Slideshare and then refer everyone to it afterwards in case they would like to have access to it.
2. Have you ever wanted to embed your PowerPoint slides on a wiki to share with students and parents? You can do that so easily with Slideshare.

3. You could have your lesson planned and outlined on Slideshare and as you go through it your video clips and even your Screencasts (if it was a technology linked lesson) could be right there. If this was placed on your classroom blog the students could access it that evening to review.

4. Your students can use this site to communicate with different audiences around the world.  Slideshare allows students to share their work, view other students’ work and make comments.

5. The Slideshare site is a treasure chest of resources for teachers to use since presentations on many different topics can be found using their search feature. There is an Education category in Slideshare where you can view the most popular shared education slideshares.

6. This is an interesting Slideshare shown below. (It is actually given on Authorstream which is another way of presenting PowerPoints but it allows voice in its paid version). This teacher is setting a Slideshare presentation task to his students using his voice as well. Take a listen.

Slideshare Lesson Final Draft




Try opening a Slideshare account and upload a PowerPoint or a different type of document to it to see what happens!  I am sure you'll start to love using Slideshare.
*Please share your link with me!

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