The 12 Days of Technology-Day 10: SlideShare

After a brief hiatus from blogging, it’s time to write about my PLN’s 10^th Day of Technology gift – SlideShare.  While I am grateful for all 12 gifts, SlideShare was the first web 2.0 application that showed me how we as teachers and learners across the globe could share our work and pool our intellectual resources while still being technology neophytes.

SlideShare is a free media site where people in all lines of work can share their presentations and documents.  It is a place to gather ideas and inspiration.  It is a place to get feedback on our own creations. It is a place to build on others’ work and have others build on ours.  It is a place to find collaborators.  It is a cloud in which to save our own presentations either privately or publicly.

As an ESL teacher, SlideShare has given me access to grammar explanations, “how to…” presentations, cultural presentations, and nearly every other kind of slide presentation I’ve needed.  I have found works that are superbly done both in content and presentation, and others that need improvement.  This variety in quality has given me inspiration as well as that little push to go ahead and see what I can develop solo or with my students without feeling like I’m jumping in way over my head.  Now I am watching the quality of my presentations improve as I am able to study what others are doing-through SlideShare.

Blogger Richard Byrne (Free Technology for Teachers), in his November 22, 2009 article, “12 Ways for Students to Publish Slideshows Online” includes an excellent “how to” slide presentation for using SlideShare.  If you are interested in finding out more about SlideShare and other venues for you and your students to use to publish your presentations, you will appreciate his article.

Go ahead, jump into SlideShare, and see what you and your students can create as a legacy to their learning and as resources for future students.