When I first looked at the science presentations on SlideShare I have to say I was very disappointed. Many seemed to be "books on slides". Just ugly Powerpoint slides with nothing but lots and lots of text. After seeing all of the other cool stuff on this 23Things project it really paled. My MTV brain couldn't focus on them.After sifting through many of these bad ones I found the following presentation titled "Chemistry Living and Systems: 123.101 Lecture 1". Now the title itself is enough to drive anyone away screaming including myself - a chemistry teacher. And it had 93 slides. Ugh. I thought "This is going to be the worst presentation ever". And to validate my thoughts I had to click on it and see just how horrible it is.
But, I was wrong. This was a great slide show! It answers the too-often asked question "Why do we have to learn chemistry?" and it does it in a way that Powerpoints should be made - quick, visually stimulating, humorous, informative and creative.
I think SlideShare can be a fine way to get a nice presentation, provided you can sift through the much of the sub par ones. But perhaps an even better idea is that when our students are to make a Powerpoint they can be required to post it to SlideShare. This would really push them to make a great one since the whole world can see it, not just the teacher.
I agree - the SlideShare you posted is great. The character that shows up on so many of the slides reminds me of your blog posts (not that the characters are similar). I also love the idea of having students post their PPTs to SlideShare. This could turn an ordinary PPT into a collaborative and/or reflective tool.
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