Slideshare

Slideshare

• What is it? What does it do?

Slideshare has been described as You Tube without video. It is a free, website that lets users upload PowerPoint, Open Office, and PDF files to share on the web. It converts your presentation into a Flash format allowing it to be viewed without requiring the original presentation software. It is turned into a Slideshare. Slideshares can be viewed by millions in the world or by groups you select. You can set up your Slideshare to be just viewed or downloaded for free. In turn some Slideshares can be downloaded for free giving you access to a variety of content.

The site offers thousands of presentations on a variety of topics. You can search by themes or conduct your own open ended search.

• What are the infrastructure and technical requirements for this tool?

The site is easy to navigate. Sign up is quick and easy. You can view and upload sites right away. There is an endless amount of Slideshares to view . You can use the prescribed buttons to search (latest, most viewed, etc.) or type in what you might want to view. It does take time as conduct your search to view Slideshare presentations.

There is a community aspect to Slideshare which gives you the opportunity to create a list of friends. This allows you to restrict the viewing of your Slideshare. It can as open or limiting as you prefer.

You may need some tech skills in order to embed a Slideshare on your website or blog.

• How can you use it effectively in instruction?

It can be a vehicle to share ideas and learn from others. The travel and tourism theme allows teachers access to other cultures.

The implications for instruction seem to be somewhat limiting for the elementary school arena.

• What are other education applications for this tool?

I would imagine that there would be some opportunities to use some of the Slideshares as a means for professional development such as a PowerPoint tutorial.

Perhaps an older age group past high school might find use for political, social, or regional content to be viewed.

You can use the site as a vehicle to archive large presentations. These presentations can be made available to be viewed by a specified audience i.e. staff.

It can be used to keep parents apprised of school activities such as field trips, class parties, etc. that cannot be attended by all parents. This would be only if BCPS would allow you to embed Slideshares on your website.

• What are the limitations and cautions related to use of this tool?

Caution: You would not want to have students K-12 accessing this site. They can easily access inappropriate content from this site as well as clicking on links to lead to other unacceptable content on the web. Teachers would require a safer site to use with students.

Limitation: 1. Time is needed to explore the content available. It is important to preview the Slideshares thoroughly before intended use. I was looking at a Slideshare for PowerPoint and one of the slides suggested that slides need to be sexy. 2. Slideshare by itself does not have audio capability. An update to this is called Slidecasting which allows for audio/video input. 3. Once you upload a file to be converted you are unable to edit and make changes.

• What are the management considerations for this tool?

This site can convert large files otherwise not possible to send through email.

Users may use the site for storage of presentations.

There are thousands of presentations and teachers would need to spend a great deal of time first searching and then viewing for content.

Writeboard

http://123.writeboard.com

Writeboard is a free text editor which allows users to collaboratively (but not real time) write, share, revise, and compare different versions of text documents. It is very easy to register – enter the site, click on create, give you text a name, assign it a password, enter your email address for identification purposes, write you text, invite those with whom you’d like to collaborate by entering their email addresses and then click on send. Each person will receive an invitation with a link to view and contribute to the writeboard. Every writeboard has a URL so you can get to it from any computer at any time.

Writeboard requires Internet Explorer 6.x, Safari, or Firefox. Writeboard doesn’t work with Internet Explorer 5.x. Other browsers may or may not work, but only the three listed are guaranteed compatible. It supports Diff which is a file comparison utility that outputs the differences between two files, or the changes made to a current file by comparing it to a former version of the same file. Diff displays the changes made per line for text files.

As I was exploring Writeboard, I thought of

· Group/team collaborative writing tasks. Each participant can add his/her section allowing the document to evolve as one unit instead of separate sections needing to be cut and pasted together with word processing programs saved in multiple files that may not be compatible.

· Collaborative work on an essay. Changes and additions can be made easily while the previous and original texts remain available for comparisons.

· Drafting text for presentations. Proofing and editing requests can be made to desired recipients without using Word (or other word processing program) or having to include an attachment.

· Teacher designed writing activities. Students can correct intentionally embedded errors and/or extend the prompt.

It is very easy to use, is not blocked by BCPS and you can choose the option to be notified of each response through your email. In all applications, a comment section is available. This allows for clarification, suggestions, commentary, discuss changes before making them, etc. to be made without interfering with or becoming lost in the text. The comment section may be used to simply converse about the text without making changes. Once the document is ready to publish, it can be sent via email or exported to a text file.

Some limitations are that whiteboard is limited to text directly entered through the site. Users can not import text from external sources but can copy and paste it in. If you want to add text features like bold, italics, bulleted or numbered lists, indented blocks, etc. writeboard, for example, you have to consult their “formatting guide”. It is easy to use, but it does add an additional step. Also, a user can not be creative with the use of clip art, pictures, borders, etc. It is strictly intended for developing text.

If writeboard is used often and organization becomes an issue, you can pay a fee to subscribe to a Backpack (see Scott’s blog) account designed to support writeboard. The site claims that using Backpack and Writeboard together is a great way to keep your writing organized and not have to remember multiple usernames and passwords.