Cool Tool Review - Slidestory

This week, I’m reviewing a presentation Cool Tool called Slidestory. From their website, Slidestory is a way to create and share presentations.  

At first, I thought this would be similar to Google Slides or Powerpoint, but it’s a bit different. What the product does it allow you to record your own narration over top of a series of picture files of your choice. Think being able to record a stereotypical “our vacation photos from an old-style carrousel slide projector” event.

As I went to check this product out, three things jumped out at me. The first, the web site shows it’s a beta version. Beta software puts me on guard to start, so immediately I’m skeptical. In order to use it, you also need to create a free account. Now I’ve created accounts with several applications, but the Beta nature had me hesitate a bit more. Then, I noticed at the bottom of the page that you had to download a client application onto your own devices.  Now alarms are officially going off in my head, so I decided to approach this review a bit differently. I’m going to try my hand at curating available information instead of creating the review myself.

To see how it works, check out the YouTube video created by Jayne Crawford about the app. In the video, she shows how to make a presentation. She also discusses the apps limitation of only being able to accept .jpg files, going about the process of converting documents into .jpg’s to add to her project. Watching her go through this, it looked like many of the steps were awkward and clunky. Then she added the audio to her project. Again, she points out a limitation of only 60 seconds of audio per slide. While that may help keep something moving, I can see times when that limit would be a bit restricting.  As she manipulates her projects, she also shows places where the app requires descriptions and tags all over the place before you save something. So, watching Ms. Crawford’s video, my take is the app can do some cool things, but it seems like it is harder than it needs to be. Since the product is in Beta, maybe they are working to fix some of these issues. However, since I’m seeing reviews going back to 2013, I’m not so sure I’d hold my breath. It looks to me like the app started in the Apple Store and then moved to an android version. Perhaps the developers don’t have much drive for a desktop version. If you like working with your mobile device – go for it. But I think most people like having a bit more space and control for presentations with substance. In that case, you’ll need to put up with the clunkiness and scary things mentioned above.

For an app for sharing personal photos, check out these reviews by engaget and CNET. Neither mention usability issues, so the mobile app might be the bee’s knees.

From an educational point of view,check out this synopsis from  TeachersFirst. They mention some of the things I’m concerned about in their review. But they also make a great point in that this may be a useful tool for a flipped classroom. That’s something I’m going to keep in mind, but I think there must be something better out there.

I guess my final take is, I don’t know about this one.  Maybe it’s great on mobiles, but it seems to be lacking in things that would make it really valuable for a teacher.