Thing 8

Share Your Creations: Photo presentations, Powerpoint-type slideshows, Databases, and Portfolios

Having already spent so much time getting a Flickr slide show to work properly (see Thing 6), I decided I'd look at some of the other sharing options available. I was not at all impressed with Lazybase. I did not find it intuitive, and the lack of instructions, hints, FAQs, or suggestions for use other than the few examples you are supposed to look at for an immediate understanding of the process made me abandon this tool quite early. The idea of cooperatively adding to and editing a database is particularly attractive, though, and I may go back and take another look.

It looks like another productivity and collaboration tools provider, Zoho (http://zoho.com/index.html) also has a database tool (Zoho Creator) which would be worth exploring. I'm impressed with the same site's online presentation tool, Zoho Show, and the possibilities that offers for publishing brief tutorials for staff or patron use. Time doesn't allow me to develop a whole tutorial, but here are the first few slides of one that I wouldn't mind spending time working on:



I don't seem to have quite the hang of all of the editing features, but I've managed to fix the HTML code! to adjust the margins of the show as it displays within the blog. Now if I could figure out why it doesn't seem to automatically republish in my blog when I make changes in the ZOHO SHOW original...

Efolio Minnesota (http://www.efoliominnesota.com/) was an eye-opener. What a wonderful way for Minnesota students and jobseekers to showcase their accomplishments. Or library staff members to introduce themselves, their backgrounds, projects, specialities, and reading interests, to patrons. I'd like to see a link to this site from the Careers area of our website!