Podcast + Powerpoint = Slidecast Mashup

I mentioned Slidshare.net before -- it is a website where you can upload and share Powerpoint presentations. I have uploaded a few of my presentations, and have marked a few others as favorites.

Now, Slidshare.net has introduced "Slidecasts." Slidecasts are mashups of audio files and uploaded Powerpoint presentations. This is kind of like what Camtasia (Techsmith.com) does on your computer, and what can be done with Garage Band for audio podcasts.

Camtasia Studio creates a recording that includes both audio and synchronized video that is captured from your computer's microphone and screen. Camtasia is mostly used to capture the combined Powerpoint presentation and audio presentation for making training videos and capturing lectures. Output can be edited and saved in a variety of different format, including Flash. (Tegrity.com also offers a similar application, with searchable files that are stored on the Tegrity server.) The Apple computer program, Garage Band, allows you to attach photos and images to segments of an existing audio, or podcast, file. The result is in a proprietory format that is only viewed on Apple's Video iPods and on the Quicktime player on PCs and Macs. It is mostly used for creating "enhanced podcasts."

Slideshare's Slidecast requires that you have two things: (1) a Powerpoint presentation that has been uploaded to Slideshare.net [ppt, pps, opd, and pdf formats all will work], and (2) an MP3 audio file that is accessible somewhere on the Internet -- on a webpage or on a blog. (There are some free audio/podcast sites that might work for this, such as Gcast.com.) Slidecast is nice online application that allows you to mashup these two files by moving slide transitions to any point on the audio file.

The resulting Slidecast is very slick and can be viewed on the Slideshare.net website, or the code can be copies to place it on a blog or other website for viewing. Examples can be found on the Slideshare.net homepage, where a Slidecast of the Day is highlighted.

I have never used Camtasia, mostly because of the cost (I like free things). I do, however, record my lectures and presentations, which I sometimes use to create podcasts, and I lecture with Powerpoint slides. Slidecasting looks like something that I will definitely enhance the online learning of my student.

From the Slideshare.net website: "Slidecasting is a new multimedia format for viewing slide decks synchronized with an audio file. It is for conference talks, musical slideshows, audio picture books or whatever else you can imagine. It's really easy to create one, so get started now!"

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NEW (30 Aug 07): I created my first Slidecast today. It was incredibly easy! Check it out here.

NEW (3 Sept 07): Edublogs.org has posted instructions for embedding Slideshare Slidecasts, and a couple of other slide show products, in your blogs: http://edublogs.org/embedding-slideshows-and-other-flash-stuff-in-your-blog/

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SlideShare.net - The Joys of Powerpoint!

I always use Powerpoint for my presentations (there are no alternatives), and after almost every conference presentation that I have made in recent years, I have had students asking me for a copy of the Powerpoint file. This is especially true in Asia, where students must have gigabytes of .ppt files on their computers. When this first started happening, I was wary of giving my work away, but now I pretty much let anyone who wants to make a copy -- life is too short to worry about it!

SlideShare.net is website where people can upload their Powerpoint presentations (also works with Open Office and PDF files) to share with the world. This is sort of Youtube for slide presentations. While it is not as entertaining as Youtube (I can waste a lot of time there!), there are gems of information that can be useful for teaching purposes. For those interested in emerging elearning, for example, there are a bunch of presentations about Second Life, several of which focus exclusively on it use in education.

A wide variety of topics are covered by the presentations, and some are approaching 1000 views (probably more by the time many people read this). I uploaded one of my presentations (on "Travel 2.0", below), which I think is a pretty good one. However, many (if not most) of the others are of questionable value. Also, there are a lot of Spanish language presentations that are not easily filtered out (since I do not know any Spanish at all). As a result, it takes a lot of digging to find the gems in this collection -- at least if you are looking for something specific. If not, then just browsing can be fun, just like Youtube!



Click Here to view my presentation in the image above.