280 Slides is another new entry into the cloud computing market. 280 Slides is a free presentation creation tool. 280 Slides operates inside of your web browser where it looks and operates as if it was installed on your computer. In fact, my colleague just looked at 280 Slides and said, “is that Key Note?” One of the features that makes 280 Slides really unique is the image and video search and insert options. Rather than closing the 280 Slides window you’re working on, you can find images and videos using a built in search box on 280 Slides. Using the search box on 280 Slides users find Youtube and Vimeo videos as well as images from Flickr. The screen shot below shows the video and image search.

Slide shows created on 280 Slides can be shared through email, embedded into a blog, or downloaded to save on your local computer. The option to store your slide show on your local computer provides a nice back-up in case you need to access your slide show, but cannot find an Internet connection.

Applications for Education
280 Slides combines the best of cloud computing with the best of local computing. The ability to create and host presentations online means that you can avoid the cost of proprietary software. The option to download your presentations locally allows you to access them in instances of not having an Internet connection. These features make 280 Slides appealing to schools with large networks or network reliability problems. The cost savings of not using proprietary software makes 280 Slides very appealing as well.

The fact that 280 Slides looks so similar to Key Note means that students will have little trouble adjusting to using a web-based product. The built-in video and pictorial and search is a nice time saving option for students. The video and image search is also useful from a classroom management/ monitoring standpoint. With the search menu built-in students never need leave the 280 Slides website.