SlideShare

The other day I opened a free account with SlideShare. This amazing web site can transform my PowerPoint presentations into a video file. To do this I must upload a pre-created PowerPoint presentation, add MP3 music or YouTube videos, synchronise each slide to create a well timed continuous presentation. This is a great resource that I can you for both my personal and professional life. This will enable my university presentations to run smoothly without having to worry about changing the slides. I can instead focus my energy on the content that I am delivering.

Within the classroom context this will also have the same advantage. To make my classroom productive and collaborative, based upon Kearsley and Shneiderman’s (1999), collaborative approach in their “Engagement Theory”, I can use these video files in rotational group time. At one of the station the learners will be required to view the video file and then work collaborative to make meaning and extended them into a research task as the Learning Manager scaffolds their learning.

The other week one of my university colleagues and I worked collaboratively to construct a dramatical presentation around Digital Literacy. When presenting it in our lecture we used a PowerPoint presentation in the background. My role was to change the slides as it was required. I was so afraid of consuming myself in the presentation that I would forget to change the slides. If we had of used SlideShare, it would have created a less stressful environment. Below is the PowerPoint that we used, but instead I have uploaded it to SlideShare, embedded an MP3 audio track in it and have synchronized it together. The only problem would be the gaps in-between each slide. We would have had to practice it several times to get the slide synchronized with what we were doing. Another obstacle that we would have had to overcome were the hyperlinks which took the presentation to Animoto, YouTube and TeacherTube. I believe that this resource would have been very beneficial to use, but very time consuming as well.

I am looking forward in using this pedagogy tool in my profession as a future Learning Manager and now as I am in training. I will use it to implement lessons and in the older grades, the learners will be able to use it in different tasks, such as presentations and blogging, as the learners can upload these video file to their blogsites to inform their audience about the content they have found or learned.

Until my next learning experience

Kind Regards

Lizzy

Reference List

Kearsley, G., & Shneiderman, B. (1999). Engagement Theory: A framework for technology-based teaching and learning. Retrieved July 21, 2009, from: http://home.sprynet.com/~gkearsley/engage.htm

SlideShare. (2009). About Us. Accessed July 25, 2009, from: http://www.teachertube.com/