Review: ThinkFree Show Online Beta

ThinkFree Show Online Beta

product

ThinkFree Show Online Beta is an online, free, and crossplatform tool that allows you to create, collaborate, share, and publish slide shows on the internet.

ThinkFree Show runs on Java. The first time you load it, it can be a little sluggish. Once it’s loaded, I did not have a really big lag in between actions I was performing (but I had lag none the less). If you are familiar with the Microsoft layout of PowerPoint, then you’ll feel at home in ThinkFree Show. It has the same graphics and menus as PowerPoint. Here are Pros of ThinkFree:

-1 GB of storage space
-Insert popular image formats: .png, .jpeg, .gif, .jpeg, .tiff, and .bmp
-Insert images from Flickr
-Tag your presentations- You can tag your presentations in categories to help with organization
-Cross Platform- works on Mac OSX, Windows, and Linux
-Multi Language Support-Can view documents in 11 different languages
-Collaboration- Can collaborate and invite friends to just view your presentation or to edit with you (co-author). You can also add comments (keeps track of each comment you wrote) and keeps track of revisions (and retrieve them as new presentations in your folder).
-Publish your slide show on DOCEXCHANGE (share on ThinkFree server) webpages, the internet, or blogs. You can download the slide show to your hard drive.
-Slide Transitions- similar to the slide transition in PowerPoint.
-Save the slide as an image
-Slide Design themes
-Can read and edit a PowerPoint made in MS PowerPoint. Translated correctly and did not lose slides, images, clip art, text, or slide design layout.
-Clean User Interface- It’s interface reminds me of email and it’s pretty straight forward, not too cluttered or confusing.
-Search for documents, slide shows, and spreadsheets at the DOCEXCHANGE from other authors.

Cons:
-Lags-can be slow at some times and when viewing the slide show for the first time. I kept getting a warning box that told me I can only view the slide show in HTML and to try again in a few minutes
-Does Not save Automatically- unlike Google Docs and Spreadsheets, the slide show does not save automatically. A few times, I left the Power Edit mode to view the slide show, only to find out the changes I made were not saved. Every time you change something, you have to save it.

If you are looking for an online office suite that’s free and not Google Docs and Spreadsheets, check out ThinkFree today. ~Angel Brady

My rating: 3.5 stars

On recording audio with an iPod mic and distributing audio via Blackboard.

I got a great email from a friend and faculty member [represented anonymously here] at Rider who is getting into some audio creation for student use. He asked a great question, and I’m passing it on to you.

 

Rider Faculty wrote:

I just bought a mic for my iPod which will allow me to record my students, upload it into my computer and then email it to them. The files are about 1/2 a GB. Can I use Bb to help with this endeavor?

John responded:

As far as the iPod recordings - don’t try to email them! - the 500MB files [maybe they're actually half a MB?] would be unusable by anybody other than you at your desktop - it would take a day to download them, they’d bring our email server to a screeching halt, and in Blackboard we have an entire course size limit of 200MB, so you’d never be able to upload even one of these there. Also, you probably recorded a WAV or AIFF file, when what we want for audio distribution is MP3 or some other compressed audio format.

The good news is that it is almost surely a matter of quality settings. I have a podcast that I do at http://techarts.wordpress.com where the average length is 45 minutes and the average size is 25Mb or less. If you record at 96-128 Kbps with 11 KHz frequency and as mono, rather than stereo, your files will be much much smaller, though some quality will be lost.

We use a media server for storage and podcasting at http://media.rider.edu where I would put up, advertise, and maintain your audio files. You could use external links to point to them in Blackboard, but they would actually reside on Media, to save you space in your course.

Also, existing files that are half a GB can be reduced in quality to new settings [and therefore size] to make them reasonable for people to download. You can keep the original at the full size for posterity, but 500MB is a lot of space, and the difference in quality between a 500MB file and a 25MB file can be negligible if the conversion is done well.

I’d love to talk with you about this - can you give me a call? 609 896 5000 x7145.

John.

Resonance Partnership Blog: Social Media: Something Different IS Happening…

I just found this really cool blog with a lot of web 20 meta stuff, and already found an article interesting enough to add to Ghost. I’m in complete agreement that there is new refreshed movement in the blogosphere where academics are concerned. Teachers here at Rider have crossed the threshold, after several semesters of pushing, and now I’m getting a regular stream of calls about web 2.0 content issues, rss functionality, on the spot media, collaborative and social services and more. I’m loving what’s going on right now.

Resonance Partnership Blog: Social Media: Something Different IS Happening…
So, Downes also had a link to this post at Web-log ed which mentioned a comment by Downes: “The big news in this story isn’t blogs. It’s that there are a billion teachers out there. Today we use blogs to communicate with them. But how might this evolve in the future? How do we make it easier, more immediate?” Will Richardson added,” It really isn’t about blogs as much any more, is it? It’s not about the tool. It’s about the ability to connect.” Yes, the ability to connect has now become limitless and education and the transmission and acquisition of knowledge has become limitless.

A short conversation about podcasting.

Yesterday I got an email asking a question about podcasting - it’s a good starting question, and I thought you all might like to hear the conversation. I imagine that this conversation will be getting a lot larger, but right now, this is where we’re at. The email, and my responses follow, and I’ve anonymized the faculty member just to cover myself make things interesting. This also tends to illustrate the problems inherent in having discussions about technology over email - the interactive questioning part can take days. It will take 6 more emails before we’re really going anywhere communication wise with this, but I would have more trouble sharing a phone converstaion with you. Not impossible, mind you, just a little more difficult.

>A Faculty Member wrote:
>Hi John
>Do you know of any free software for creating podcasts that would
> work on both Mac and Windows.
>Thanks

On Feb 15, 2007, at 8:21 PM, John LeMasney wrote:
Sure,

There are lots of pieces of free software for working with podcasts.
Are we talking about the production and recording of podcasts,
distribution of them, editing them, and are talking about audio
only or video/screencasts, etc.?

j.

>A Faculty Member wrote:
>Hi John
>Ideally — all of the below.
>
>I will be teaching a class next spring that we would like to have
>students making podcasts –  so production/recording/editing and
>distribution — ideally cross platform software.  While we would
>teach some production basics - this wouldn’t be a production class -
>so we aren’t looking for complex solutions for creating content like
>Photoshop or Protools.  Actually one of our goals for the course
>would be to specifically stay away from “professional” and expensive
>software solutions and instead use free or very cheap software that’s
>readily available to everyone.
>Thanks

Okay,

Regarding Audio:

Editing, recording, tracking, and mixing can be done using Audacity.

http://audacity.sourceforge.net

Audacity is an open source [free] audio editing and finishing application.

Regarding Video:

From any source, you can create podcast prepared video using transcoding tools in VideoLan Client.

http://videolan.org

VLC is an open source [free] video playing and transcoding application.

Regarding distribution:

Advertising, RSS feeds, distribution, and related content can be done using WordPress.com

http://wordpress.com

With a free account, WordPress.com allows you to create a blog that can easily contain podcasts.

If you’d like to see podcasting in WordPress in action, take a look at my podcast at http://techarts.wordpress.com or you can see the full blown Open Source wordpress engine locally installed at our media server at http://media.rider.edu

I’d be happy to give you an overview of how this all works.

John.

Upcoming CII Session: Group Learning and Blackboard Discussions

February 19th 11:30am,
1pm 2007 —
CII Session: Group Learning and Blackboard Discussions.— at
Rider University: Fine Arts 113

In this session, we’ll focus on the issues surrounding the instructional strategies and effective use of Blackboard discussion boards as assessment and communication tools. Presented by John LeMasney and Kathleen Pierce.

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