Uploading to SlideShare

Navigate your browser to http://slideshare.net. You’ll need a SlideShare account. Once you’ve logged in you’ll be able to upload your presentation:

1. Select My Slidespace from the menu at the top of the page:



2. Click on the Upload your first slideshow now link:



3. Use the Upload page to choose your presentation and upload it to SlideShare:



4. Once the file is uploaded, you can specify how it can be shared. Note that you can choose to make the presentation private (you don’t have to make it available to the entire world):



5. When you are done with the details, click on the Publish button. The presentation needs to be converted so that SlideShare can display it correctly. This can take a while, but you can check the status to see how SlideShare is getting on:



6. Once the presentation has been converted, it’s ready to view:



7. That’s it! The presentation is online and ready to go.

Here are just a few of the advantages of using SlideShare to include your presentation in a Moodle course:

• Your students may not have PowerPoint installed on their computers nor be aware of the special player they can download (check out the Microsoft website for details). That’s no problem! SlideShare will play the presentation for them.
• You don’t have to worry about file sizes. The presentation is stored on SlideShare’s computers and not in your Moodle.
• Using SlideShare’s built-in tools, it’s easy to create an audio commentary (more on this in the next section).

But there can be disadvantages. For example, I tried making my presentation more engaging and entertaining by including animations (which is good if you are a visual/spatial learner). However, in SlideShare those animations no longer work.

So, how do you actually include a SlideShare presentation in a Moodle course?

Let’s do this now:

1. SlideShare provides a fragment of web page code along with each presentation:



2. Right-click on the code, and choose Select All followed by Copy.

3. In your Moodle course, you can include the slideshow using the HTML editor. I’m going to include the presentation on a Moodle web page. Click on the Toggle HTML Source button:



4. Cursor to the end of the page’s HTML code, right-click and select Paste:



5. Click on the Toggle HTML Source button again and the slideshow gets displayed in the editor:



6. It’s that simple!

Look for embedded code in your favorite content sharing websites (for example, YouTube).

Audio commentaries and SlideShare—slidecasts

We’ve already seen how we can record an audio commentary using Audacity. I’ve mentioned that you can create an audio commentary (or slidecast) using SlideShare. Let’s do that now. I can use the recording I made previously to narrate the presentation uploaded to SlideShare:

1. Return to your my slidespace area. Click on the Edit link under your presentation:



2. On the Edit Slideshow Details page, click on the Create Slidecast tab:



3. The Create Slidecast page is displayed. As the instructions on this page recommend, you will need to upload your commentary to the Internet. You won’t be able to use Moodle, as your course files area isn’t accessible outside of Moodle (that’s one of Moodle’s vital security features). I’m going to upload my narration to the Internet Archives You’ll need a registered account to do this. Simply follow the instructions to upload your file:



4. Copy the link to the audio file to the Create Slidecast page (if you are using the Internet Archive, then the individual audio files are listed at the bottom of the archive page). Click on the Link mp3 to slideshow button:



5. Once the audio is processed, the Synchronization Tool is displayed. Use the tool to associate a slide with the correct fragment of audio:



6. Once you are happy with your new slidecast, click on the Save & Publish button in the bottom-right corner of the page:



7. Return to your My Slidespace page. Click on your presentation. You will now see a note in the corner of the presentation:



8. That’s it. We’re done!

Before we leave our discussion of SlideShare, make a note of the SlideShare sidebar. If you’ve more than one presentation in your course, it can make finding the right presentation easier for your students. Visit http://www.slideshare.net/widgets/blogbadge for more details.