Free Resources from the Net for (Special) Education

Welcome to this Treasure Chest of Free Stuff.

FREE online resources and downloadable programs for learners and their teachers.

Quite often these days I’m surprised to encounter colleagues who have never heard of slideshare. It is a marvelous resource for sharing all manner of presentations, and it’s such a great place to do initial research on current topics, that I mistakenly assume everyone uses it. I shouldn’t be so surprised because slideshare only celebrated its first anniversary last week.

slideshare (online resource) Here’s a quintessential free Web 2.0 application that consists entirely of user-generated content that is shareable, searchable, and often downloadable. As its name suggests, slideshare hosts slideshows; and anyone can create a free account and upload to slideshare. Uploads can include PowerPoint, pdf, or OpenOffice (odp) file formats.

Uploaded files on slideshare can be tagged to facilitate topical searching. As well, slideshare facilitates comments, favorites, etc. It also provides forums for specific communities built around shared interests.

This summer, slideshare became even more powerful by introducing the concept of “slidecasts”. You are now able to upload audio commentary and/or musical accompaniment. The audio file must be hosted elsewhere on the net, but this isn’t difficult to do, and there are several sites where audio files may be hosted free of charge. Our Media and MediaMax are two examples.

It doesn’t take much imagination to envision ways of using slideshare for professional development and collaboration. I believe it also holds great promise as a platform that learners at all levels can use for digital story-telling.

Check out my first attempt at slidecasting. If putting this demonstration and tutorial here helps get the word out about WordTalk, then so much the better. Just click the green start button. You may have to wait for buffering.

[slideshare id=77433&doc=word-talk1763&w=425]