Tuesday, February 26, 2008

The modern slideshow

Ever gone to one of those awful "slide nights" when you were a kid? Some neighbour would invite your whole family over to see slides of their family holiday to... wherever. And the slide projector always developed a fault, or blew a globe. Or someone would spill the box of slides, or the screen would be blank and someone would make those tired old jokes about the white screen representing a snowman in a blizzard.

May I present the modern slideshow, which I'm using as a teaching tool in my job as a teacher-librarian. I Photoshop and upload the photos to the Internet from home, select them as a group for a slideshow, and design lessons around the use of the images (that have no copyright problems).

My first three Flickr slideshows have proven to be very useful. But I learned something very exciting yesterday: when the mouse is dragged across the middle of the frame, a large "i" icon appears. I assumed this meant "information" but I never thought to test it. Children don't seem to have that lack of impulse to click a button; thus I discovered that my photo titles and description, in white text, superimpose the photos at the click of a mouse! Simple, but effective. Technology makes adults feel dumb sometimes!

Chinese New Year K-2
Bridges - Stage Two (Years 3 & 4)
Antarctica - Stage Three (Years 5 & 6)

1 comment:

The Other Andrew said...

I've been having problems with Flickr all of a sudden on account of a firewall at work. Now most Flickr pics are just appearing as grey boxes. :( Not happy!

(BTW - check your email, I emailed you about a blooger meet up.)