Convert Open Office Presentations to Flash Slide Shows

Here is something I discovered. Did you know that you can save Open Office Impress Presentation documents in Flash format? Why is this important? With this capability, you can create a tutorial or slide show and place it on your website. The presentation can be accessed right on your website using Macromedia Flash which everyone has. All you have to do is create your presentation and save it. Then, go to File/Export and choose Macromedia Flash (swf). Save to your desktop. Open this file by opening Firefox. Then, go to File/Open File. Browse and find your swf file and open it. If it works here, it will work on a web page.

Background and Purpose

The 2008 CUE conference featured an Open Source Linux lab created by Steve Hargadon. The lab consisted of thirty-two thin client laptops and a server running a Fedora Linux Terminal Server Project network. All the computers were donated and the cost of the lab was under $1000.00. All the software was free and the system was fast. I realized the potential of this resource and how my students would benefit from using this technology in their classroom. Linux is free and works on virtually any computer. A network is easy to build and configure. Since then, I have integrated Edubuntu LTSP into my fifth grade classroom. Open Source software has created many new learning opportunities for me and my students. The purpose of this blog is to share methods of integration and teaching strategies within the daily schedule of the classroom as well as sharing basic administration tasks. Hopefully the information on this blog will help others.