There was a lot of interest in the potential for Facebook at the recent Institutional Web Management Workshop, with Alison Wildish’s plenary talk on “Let the Students do the Talking…” plenary talk generating much discussion, some of which has been captured in a wiki page used for notes in the discussion groups, with Debbie Nicholson’s notes being particularly relevant.
This discussion is of interest here at the University of Bath, and I have been invited to give a talk about Facebook, including ways it which it may be beneficial to the University and the potential dangers that may be associated with its use.
As I have recently mentioned various tools for producing multimedia presentations, I thought I’d use the preparation for this talk as an opportunity to try our Slideshare’s Slidecast service, which Adrian Stevenson introduced me to.
I have written the first draft of my slides, which I have uploaded to Slideshare. I then recorded a rehearsal of the talk, and ‘mashed-up’ the MP3 file with the Slideshare presentation.
The technology was very simple to use – but I have to admit that I hate having to give such rehearsals and listen to my own voice.
Feedback on the content of this talk (or on the Slidecast service) is welcome – but not, please, on the hesitations, deviations or repetitions! At least if I’m reluctant to listen to myself, seven Slideshare users, so far, have added this slidecast to their list of favourites and over 580 users have viewed it 🙂
Thanks, Brian. As apparently the last person in the UK not using Facebook, it is useful to know the pros and cons. Moreover, reading between the pixels, I now know the personal views of one of our IT services people and the fact that there is a project at http://www.janetcollaborate.ac.uk/ that might provide an alternative. BTW an interesting Educause Review article from Cornell’s Director of IT Policy (who also doesn’t have a Fb page) at http://www.educause.edu/apps/er/erm06/erm0660.asp (they also have a couple of helpsheets in their ELI series).