Show Beyond: Slidecasting

Project Description: "Create a slidecast using the Showbeyond. Your slidecast must have the following: a title slide, a minimum of 12 images, audio or music, a short statement (text) to tell story on each slide"

Overview: Slidecast has many different uses, but being a teacher, I suppose I will start with the professional application. Showbeyond software is a great tool for a teacher to use because it is online, free and fast. In little time, I could create instructional slidecasts for a lesson with music to deliver information to my students in a way that may be easier for them to remember than just lecturing to them. Also, because I teach a web-based class, I can upload the slidecast for them to review as many times as they need, or I can keep slidecasts in my lesson plan for future classes.

For the students, Showbeyond is a way for them to develop well organized presentations without having to master one of the more detailed programs like powerpoint (also, outside of the classroom, not all of my students have access to powerpoint, but if they have internet access, they can get to Showbeyond). Uploading photos and music is really easy and the software allows plenty of opportunity to re-edit and make additions to the project.

For use outside of the classroom, Showbeyond is a good way to make a documentary for advertising or to display family photos. For the class project, I created a profile of my best friend, Robby Musso, who also happens to be an incredibly talented artist. As you can see in my Showbeyond above, Robby is a comic book artist and has been drawing for the Transformers comic books. He also shares my love for all things anime, and Showbeyond was a great way to showcase some of his artwork. I also could not resist adding the theme song from the original Transformers Movie (the one from 1983…not the one starring Shia LeBuf). If you were born in 1979 or before, admit it- you were humming along!

Showbeyond does not require as much practice or trial and error as some of the other software applications we learned in this class, but it is rather limited in the file size and running time of the music uploads and overall project. I do not think the limitations outway the benefits of the software, but it is something to consider for larger or more professional projects that may require more detail.