Online presentation using SlideShare

Once again, another very fun, very cool assignment. My only complaint was that I don't feel like I knew enough to be able to choose a good topic by the time we had to commit to one. But I enjoyed it immensely.

I did misunderstand something in the assignment. Because I haven't worked a great deal with PowerPoint, I read "including notes" as endnotes. I was glad to read all the e-mails among the group — that helped straighten things out for me.

A little blip: last weekend when I was at home, one of my UCA colleagues e-mailed me a PowerPoint, and when I tried to open it, my PowerPoint application disappeared — well, not exactly — it was Xed out! I had not played with SlideShare much before then, but luckily I went by UCA before heading back to USM to get Office reinstalled. I got the Mac update instead, which I would have eventually gotten anyway, but, of course, when I did the SlideShare, I got the message that the site doesn't yet support the updated Office. So I converted my show to a PDF, which I would have done anyway per Dr. Yuen's instructions, but that could have been very frustrating.

I chose as my topic the conversion of traditional journalism courses to Web-based instruction, and I intend to do this as I head back to UCA in the fall. There is lots of information out there that I didn't get to, obviously, but I know enough to get started, so I will begin the transition process when I get home. Truthfully, I haven't used PowerPoint much in my teaching — I like to write on the white board as we go, and I've even had students tell me they prefer that I don't use PowerPoint (I think they get tired of it sometimes). But that will change starting this fall. I'll probably keep using the markers and white board just because that keeps me — and them — engaged, but I will also use PowerPoint and Slideshare.

Here's the link: http://www.slideshare.net/DKLStephens/converting-j-classes-to-the-web/