A slideshow is a presentation made up of a series of images or pages that you display one after another, like flipping through a picture book page by page but on a screen. Each individual image or page is called a slide.

You've probably seen slideshows in class when your teacher projects information onto a screen using programs like PowerPoint or Google Slides. Each slide might have text, pictures, diagrams, or videos that help explain the lesson. The teacher clicks to move forward, revealing one slide at a time so the class can focus on each idea before moving to the next.

Before computers, people created slideshows using actual transparent slides (small pieces of film) and a machine called a slide projector that shone light through them onto a wall. Your grandparents might remember sitting in dark auditoriums watching these mechanical slideshows. Today, digital slideshows are everywhere: vacation photos cycling through on your phone, museum displays explaining exhibits, or business meetings where people present ideas to their colleagues.

Good slideshows use images and key words to support what the speaker is saying, rather than making the audience read paragraphs of tiny text all at once.