Presentation time

Things 17 and 18 are on presenting information, using slides or screen/audio capture.

I had never used Prezi or Slideshare - not even to view a presentation! I am glad to say: I have fixed that now, though it was obviously the easy bit!

The harder bit was creating my own Prezi. I decided to do an overview of Newcastle Libraries' online presence... It is only a test, so you might find it rather plain and wordy, but here it is below. (Best viewed in full screen: click on the player, then on "More" when this button appears and select "Full screen")

Newcastle Libraries Online : Turn a new web page on Prezi

I was rather surprised with the use of Slideshare for visual résumés. It is not something I would consider doing (yet?) though I have to admit the example shown at the bottom of the blog post for Thing 17 is quite good!

For Thing 18 I tried Jing, and I was amazed at how easy it is to use. I made a short video for a French friend who was having trouble accessing a Google Document I had shared with her, and I also had fun annotating a group photo... I hope my colleagues will forgive me! (Screen capture of the Newcastle Libraries blog, article posted on 6th October 2011)

I have never created a podcast, but I have "tampered with" an audio file before, though I cannot remember if it was with Audacity or with a different software... I am however familiar with listening to podcasts and podcatching.

Newcastle Libraries use podcasts mainly to interview visiting authors, which I think is great to share with people who could not attend the event and also to keep a record of it. The potential of Prezi and Jing are obvious for tutorials: we could create entertaining online user guides in this way.