PhotoPeach

PhotoPeach is an online slideshow creator that students can use to tell stories, organize photos, or create presentations. The site allows you to access photos from Facebook, Picasa, or your own computer, and walks you through the slideshow creation process, including how to add captions and music. First, you'll upload a chosen series of pics, then pick an accompanying song to play in the background if you like. You can then drag and drop photos into the correct order, and add captions to each. It's also possible to add an interactive quiz; just click Quiz while editing.

Once a slideshow is complete, students have a few options: They can keep it unlisted (that's the default), make it public to all PhotoPeach viewers, or allow only invited viewers to see it. Social media publishing is also possible. When slideshows are open to other users, they can add comments, similar to YouTube or other sharing sites.

PhotoPeach is a perfectly simple site that does just what it sets out to do -- provide a place to create slideshows. Users only need to upload their media, and the resulting slideshows can look quite polished. Whether students are working on a research project or making a multimedia presentation, PhotoPeach is a fun and simple resource. However, students who are used to more advanced applications may want more design and playback options.

There is one issue to watch out for: While the site has pre-loaded music selections, students can also choose songs from YouTube (content filters permitting). This might distract students, or they could find themselves perusing inappropriate content. And while the YouTube song selection feature can be handy, the videos play in a tiny corner of the screen during a slideshow, which could be an audience distractor. The included music on the site isn't bad -- and you can upload your own mp3s -- but a better pre-loaded selection would be an improvement.