Slide shark

I have been trying out a new app today. Since getting the iPad I have been grappling with the concept of whether I can use it as a sole teaching tool - reason mostly being I walk to work and my school laptop is really heavy and chunky and gives me backache!

My two issues are SIMS, which I have no idea how to solve, and, I suppose workflow is the word. Most of my lessons to date have been planned using PowerPoint and although I am getting pretty good at importing to Prezi now, there isn't always time, and there are some times when the animations on ppt are really useful, eg highlighting verb endings, word order etc. which when you use it direct from dropbox, you can't see.

So after a google search I came across Slide Shark. You can import ppts from email or Dropbox etc, and then download them to your device to present offline. There is 100 mb of storage but you can earn or buy more. However if you were storing stuff elsewhere, you could just download the day's lessons and then delete afterwards, which is what I plan to do if I end up liking it as much as I think I will...

Good things about slide shark so far:

1) it's free!

2) it's very easy!

3) it keeps the animations and web links/hyperlinks from ppts

4) you can also download the app onto your iPhone, link it to your iPad via a PIN number, and use it as a remote. So for those of us who can't present wirelessly at school, it means you can have the iPad plugged into the projector at the front, and roam about the room while presenting. Whoopeeeeee! I cannot express how exciting and liberating this prospect is. I will be able to stand next to my more, ahem, challenging little darlings and still present.

I tried it out tonight at my adult ed class, and it worked brilliantly. So tomorrow will be the real test at school. I will report back!