I’ve had presentations on the brain this month since Vinnie, Stephanie and I were asked to present at the State Library Institute last week.  I read about 280 Slides a few months ago, so the connection seems obvious – today we’ll look at 280 slides!

What is it?

280 Slides is an online presentation creation tool – pretty much an online version of Powerpoint.  We’ve talked about Google Presentations before (briefly), which I have used frequently in the past year, and indeed we used it for our presentations last week.  280 Slides is just another way to create, save, and share your presentations online.

How does it work?

You just start making a presentation – there is no need to register to create anything, but you will need to register if you want to save your presentation.  Registration just requires an email address and password.

You can upload a previous powerpoint as start, or create a presentation from scratch.   If starting from scratch, you can choose from about 9 themes.  You can change your theme at any time.  I really like the interface, which is very simple and intuitive (though for some reason, I can’t change fonts).  It’s clear how to add slides, change the layouts, insert picture, shapes, videos, or text, and how to add presenter notes.

A nice feature is the ability to search for images using a web search right within 280 Slides.  You can find the image you like and insert it directly into the presentation.  It’s also very simple to resize and position the images.  I like using Flickr Commons for presentation images, so this is a feature I would use often.  Of course, you can still upload your own images from your computer, or specifiy an image URL.

280 Slides automatically and regularly saves your presentation, so you don’t have to worry about losing it. Once you’ve completed your presentation, you have several options:  you can download it to your computer as a Powerpoint (ppt), Powerpoint 2007 (pptx), Open Document (odp) or PDF file.  You can also share it by exporting it to Slideshare, emailing it to colleagues, or linking/embedding it on a website. Now for the ultimate test – can I embed it in WordPress? No – though I can and will embed my test presentation from Slideshare:

You can also give a presentation directly in 280 Slides, as simply as just clicking on “Present.”

I uploaded my recent presentation for the Library Institute, which I created in Google Presentations and saved as a ppt file on my computer to 280 Slides, and it imported just fine, without any wonky mistakes.

Possible Library Uses

Obviously, many of us give presentations, and this is just another great tool for that.  I’ve found that I prefer creating and storing my presentations online.  Because there are many variables when giving presentations, such as software available, internet access, your laptop vs. their computer, I like to have multiple options.  I currently prefer to store my presentation on my laptop as a PDF, but if they have internet access, I’ll just use their computer and do the presentation online.  My presentation skills are pretty basic, so the simple tools in both 280 Slides and Google Presentations are more than adequate for my purposes.  I’d be interested to hear what the rest of you think!

Reviews