Stack 'Em Up

This past summer Richard Byrne posted on his blog, Free Technology for Teachers,  about an application, Slidestaxx.  This free service gathers various social media into a beautiful slide show for your blog, website or directly on slidestaxx.  All types of media, images, videos, or websites, can be added to create a slide show which can be shared on social networks or published using an embed code.

To begin click on the SIGN UP button.  Enter in a username and valid email address.  You are immediately sent a confirmation email which includes a password to use in logging in.  When you log in you are taken to your home page within this application.

Beneath your photo you can create a new slidestack, edit your account (email address, change password, add or change your picture, allow users to contact you by your email address and your time zone), view your full profile (picture and list of stacks), invite a friend to join Slidestaxx or logout.  Across the top you might wish to Explore other slidestacks.  They are grouped by new and noteworthy, most popular and new on Slidestaxx.  You can also conduct a Search by entering in a keyword.

When you create your slidestack the initial page asks for a title, description, cover picture, tags,  and publishing options (checked or unchecked published).  That information can be edited from the next screen which is your slidestack workspace.  Now images, videos, websites and products (links to amazon.com, interestingly enough) can be added.

To add any of the items, click on the add words, copy and paste in the URL plus give a short informative caption for each.  As the slides are added to the stack they appear in a list below the slide screen.  These can be edited, deleted or the order can be changed by clicking on the small drag icon on the far left.

To the right of your slidestack screen are the ability to like this on Facebook, post it to Twitter or more than 300 other social networks sites and additional options such as printing or sending via email.  Visitors to the stack can love or unlove, comment at the bottom and you can embed this using the provided code.

As viewers go through your slidestack the videos can be played immediately.  The link in the lower right hand corner will take them to the websites.

Here is my Slidestaxx creation for an upcoming author/illustrator study on Laura Vaccaro Seeger.


I did send an email asking about sizing of the embed.  The HTML code gives no indication on size.  This application is so easy to use with immediate and sophisticated results, it is going to the top of my web 2.0 toolbox.