Presenting Personal Presentations

On two separate occasions, March 9, 2012 and February 14, 2012, Richard Byrne, educator, presenter and blogger at Free Technology for Teachers,  has posted about an application that can be used to enhance your slide presentations.  Hello Slide adds audio to a PowerPoint presentation giving it a new dimension.  The unique feature of this free online application is audio can be added by entering in the text to be spoken.

At the home page of Hello Slide users without registration have access to Featured Presentations and others uploaded and tagged under these headings:  Books, Business, Design, Education, Entertainment, Finance, How-to, News, Photography, Technology and Travel.  When a user has finished viewing a selected presentation, they can choose to like it, embed it using HTML code or by capturing a URL link, get details (date last modified, category tag, original language and the license) or click on the genius icon.  The genius icon provides additional links based upon the content of the slide show. 

To begin using the service, register by giving your email address and creating a password.  A confirmation email is sent immediately.  Once you are logged in, this application is fairly simple to use.

Your slide presentation needs to be converted to a PDF by saving it in that file extension.  Then upload it to the Hello Slide site.  Twenty different languages are available for the voice over.  Visibility choices are public (anyone can see the presentation) or private (only the user sees the presentation). 

When your set of slides has been uploaded you can add audio, play the finished product, edit audio, change the settings for the set of slides or view a revisions log.

To start click on the add audio to your presentation link.  On the left will be your individual slides.  Click on each one that you wish to have audio added.

Beneath the selected slide in the center is a large white box.  Type the text in the space provided.  Once the text is complete click on the play button at the bottom of the screen to hear your audio.  When your audio additions are complete click on the small save icon in the upper right hand corner. 

Once saved your presentation can be used according to your settings' selections.

Using this application could not be easier.  Audio for younger students unable to read yet is a plus.  If you have students whose command of a language other than English is better,  this is an option for creating an additional presentation substituting their strongest language.

This is an example (an older PowerPoint) of what can be done.