Web 2.0 and Emerging Learning Technologies/Slideshare

SlideShare is a highly original and imaginative electronic tool in which people from all over the world can easily upload and download Power Point or PDf presentations by themselves. This resource can also provide users with the chance of directly interacting with others, which enables them to create a massive collaborative community on the Internet, as well. Not only can this innovative website actively encourage creativity as a means of spontaneous expression, but it can promote and strongly develop different areas or topics of interest, too.

Users can selectively share presentations either privately: with a group of selected people, or collectively: with other users. This electronic tool may also serve clearly distinct purposes: education, business, meeting people, advertising etc...

For example: Individuals and organizations can upload presentations to widely share their ideas, connect with others, to generate leads for their businesses, to strive for educational goals etc. Users can search (far and wide) for presentations which well suit their individual interests, they can tag, download, or embed presentations into their own blogs, and websites.

How can this resource facilitate teaching and learning?

There are various ways in which this resource can greatly aid in teaching and learning. Depending on the group level or age group, teachers can make different uses of this creative electronic tool using it as free material, since it doesn't take so much time, and money to prepare presentations which not only include text but also visuals, and audio as well. Teachers can fully share their material with their co-workers, colleagues from whom they can receive feedback regarding the practical and potential usefulness of each presentation.

Students can considerably benefit from distinctive characteristics of this resource: presentations can directly appeal to students senses (through audio, visuals), they get completely hooked on them, which is a significant advantage teachers can make extensive use of, so as to attract students attention when presenting a complex grammatical topic. Taking into account students' age, they can create their own presentations over a certain assigned topic to be shared with the rest of their classmates, later on. This resource may also be introduced to increase students' awareness concerning the numerous applications users can run to be used in education.

These are some examples of slideshare applications to ELT

Title:Red cat vocabulary

Link: http://www.slideshare.net/anahera/red-cat-vocabulary

Review: Red cat vocabularyis a pretty simple presentation which successfully combines vocabulary on animals with colours and their spellings. It looks particularly useful for children at early stages of development since it serves practical purposes.

Title:Adjectives and their opposites

Link: http://www.slideshare.net/thatsenglishtorre/adjectives-and-their-opposite

Review: Through this PP presentation children at the elementary level can learn and/or revise the spelling and the pronunciation of some adjectives together with their binary opposites (antonyms) including clear illustrations, in each slide, accompanying the presentation in full colour.

Title:School Objects and Prepositions

Link: http://www.slideshare.net/guest4a2e20/prepositions-at-school?src=related_normal&rel=433805

Review: This choice, which we consider could also be used with children at the elementary level (beginners), allows them, in a quite clear fashion, to become well acquainted with vocabulary on school objects, and prepositions including some slides which combine explanations in both languages: English and Spanish, besides showing children how to properly ask a question to know what an object is, and the instances in which the indefinite article -a-an- must be used.

Title: Turn Off The Lights Please!

Link: http://www.slideshare.net/guest4cb60e/turn-off-the-lights-please-presentation

Review: In this PP presentation students and adults at pre-intermediate or intermediate levels are shown the appropriate way of using two–part verbs (phrasal verbs) in everyday situations. Each slide precisely conveys the meaning of the phrasals through pictures which clearly depict their usage, and explanations of how to correctly use them with nouns and pronouns. In addition to this, we can also find examples of the use of the phrasals in combination with polite requests and different ways of apologizing. Finally, this complete and functional presentation enables students, and adults to accurately assess their understanding of the topic by means of some exercises as practice.

These are some of the links we found similar to the slideshare website in different degrees. The following is a short description of the various features each site includes, in which we account for the reason why we have selected them.

http://www.slideboom.com http://www.worldofteaching.com http://www.pppst.com http://www.de.mingoville.com http://www.authorstream.com

http://www.slideboom.com

This site is said to be quite distinct from the others since here, a user’s original presentation can keep its features after a conversion process which includes -among other things-:
 * content style
 * animation effects
 * embedded audio & video

Users do not have to register themselves so as to be able to watch Powerpoint presentations; and once they have become members, they can upload pps’, assess others’ work, and comment on them as well. Powerpoint presentations can easily be found in many different languages by means of tags; and it is up to the users the decision to share them with a selective group of people or with everyone. We have chosen this website because it offers a wide range of powerpoint presentations which can be well used in Elt lessons.

http://www.worldofteaching.com

Another choice we have made is ¨ www.worldofteaching.com¨ where users can have immediate access to and download powerpoint presentations connected with education and some others related to ELT for adults. However, in this site, users cannot directly upload a Powerpoint presentation. If they want to share their work with others, they have to send their presentation by e-mail to the following e-mail address: tpp@worldofteaching.com.

http://www.pppst.com

Users can get rapid and free access to a large number of Powerpoint presentations in this site, which can be extensively used in ELT lessons specially designed for kids. Although in this place presentations are not allowed to be shared, this resourceful site provides users with several similar links.

http://www.de.mingoville.com

This website is one of the largest English learning online communities where children can learn and practise English online. This place was specifically designed by educators who mainly based their work on teaching mingled with entertainment. In this website, teachers can particularly find plenty of material for ELT, they can also download activities for kindergarten in PDF files which can be used, afterwards, in a rather useful and didactic way.

http://www.authorstream.com

In this website people can find and share presentations worldwide on just any topic. Authorstream allows people to:


 * Watch presentations on line.
 * Embed the presentation in blogs or e-mail the link to friends.
 * Rate presentations or post comments.
 * Use the authorSTREAM application on Facebook and share presentations with friends.
 * See, upload or download presentations as guests.
 * Convert presentations to mp4 format so that the presentations can be seen on YouTube, on i-pods and on i-phones.
 * Decide the way they want to share their presentations.