The audio slide show – a multimedia piece that combines audio and still photos – is a standard format in most newsrooms and journalism classrooms. And Soundslides, a program created by Joe Weiss, is the standard program used to create them.

Soundslides is so easy to use that it does not require hours of step-by-step tutorials. However, after a few semesters of teaching audio slide shows, I have collected a list of resources that I have found helpful for introducing and troubleshooting the process for beginners.

Examples of Inspiring Audio Slide Shows

For examples of great audio slide shows, I often turn to Interactive Narratives, a clearinghouse for the best of online visual storytelling. The audio slide show can also be a powerful way to profile individuals. For examples of audio slide show profiles, I like the New York Times series One in 8 Million and the Los Angeles Times series pop.u.LA.tion.

When Is an Audio Slide Show the Best Format for a Story?

NewsUniversity has an online course called Five Steps to Multimedia Storytelling. It aims to teach which stories are more suitable for multimedia.

To understand the power – and limits – of an audio slide show, read a Poynter interview with Sounslides creator Joe Weiss. He discusses the potential and some common pitfalls of the format.

Also on the BBC’s College of Journalism blog, Kevin Marsh ponders the question: “Why would you choose a slide show when you could use video?”

How to Use Soundslides

The Soundslides user manual is the place to begin when teaching or trying the program for the first time.

Jeremy Rues has created a nice step-by-step Soundslides tutorial for the Knight Digital Media Center.

Here is a PowerPoint presentation I use to introduce audio slide shows and SoundSlides in the classroom.

Here is the step-by-step instructions I give students for creating an audio slideshow in SoundSlides and coverting it to video file so it can be posted on a blog (in .pdf format).

Also I’ve created a screencast video on how to embed a Soundslides slide show on a self-hosted WordPress blog. This is one of the most common questions I get from students, especially after my class has ended and they are doing their own independent projects.

Tips for Creating a Better Audio Slide Show

To avoid common mistakes, read the post How to Make Your Audio Slide Shows Better by Colin Mulvany.

Mark Luckie lists Five Common Photo Slide Show Mistakes.

Mindy McAdams has two great blog posts on the subject: Tell a Good Story with Images and Sound and Do’s and Don’ts for Slide Shows.

Soundslides Tools

On the Soundslides forum, you can read through questions and issues others have encountered and post your own questions. (I posted a message about a bug last week, and I received a reply within a few hours.)

Soundslides Embed Utility – This tool allows you to post your published slide shows to a blog, or embed them in other pages.

Soundslides Video Converter – This tool converts audio slide shows into an mp4 video file. That way they can placed on sites like YouTube and Vimeo, embedded on free WordPress.com blogs, or viewable on an iPod.

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I read through my course evaluations from last semester and in addition to comments like “he’s long-winded, but nice enough,” a number of students gave high marks to the free Web tutorials I assigned in my online journalism classes. I was pleasantly surprised because I wasn’t sure how to measure their usefulness, and I had to create graded assignments to make the student actually do them.

But overall, students said they found the tutorials helpful, liked that they could learn at their own pace, and returned to them over and over again.

I found out about many of these tutorials from Mindy McAdams, who has written a great series of posts called a Reporter’s Guide to Multimedia Proficiency on her blog. NewsU and the Knight Digital Media Center are also great resources.

So below is a list of tutorials I’ve used in my courses. They are all free and all aimed at beginners.

Any you would suggest?

Also this fall, I plan to create a series of video tutorials for my students and will post them here.

STORYTELLING
Five Steps of Multimedia Storytelling (NewsU)
Ira Glass of This American Life on the building blocks of good storytelling (25 minutes of YouTube videos)
Part 1: On the basics
Part 2: On finding a great story
Part 3: On taste
Part 4: On common pitfalls

DIPITY TIMELINE
How to Make a Timeline Using Dipity (Berkey-Gerard)

GOOGLE MAPS
11 Exercises to Learn How to Make a Google Map (Berkey-Gerard)

Google Map Video Tours:
Getting Started
Add a Place
Google Street View
Create a Map
Add Third Party Content
Create a Google Map profile

HTML and CSS
Beginner HTML Tutorial (HTML Dog)
Beginner CSS Tutorial (HTML Dog)

PHOTOGRAPHY
Language of the Image (NewsU)
Photoshop How-To for Online Photos (Mindy McAdams)

AUDIO
Telling Stories with Sound (NewsU)
Gathering Audio by Brian Storm (MediaStorm)
How to convert .wma, .wmv, or .mp3 files using Switch (Berkey-Gerard)
How to Use Garage Band (Knight Digital Media Center)
How to Use Audacity (Knight Digital Media Center)

SOUND SLIDES
Photoshop How To for Sound Slides (Mindy McAdams)
How to Use the Sound Slides (Knight Digital Media Center)

VIDEO
How to Use iMovie (Knight Digital Media Center)

MULTIMEDIA COLLAGE
How to Make a Multimedia Collage Using VuVox (VuVox)