Video in PowerPoint

I spent quite a session last weekend finding out how to download videos from you tube, editing them and then inserting small clips into a presentation. This all fits in with my aim of moving to a more graphic/visual presentation style in PowerPoint

The session involved putting firefox and a firefox add in on my Vista laptop (thanks for the information D) so that I could download useful videos from you tube to a downloads folder in mpeg. It took a couple of tries before I found a download that worked and in the end I put youTube catcher on. This let me convert the FLV files to another format -MOV which seems to be the standard quick time format. This involved a fair bit of trial and error. I really need a glossary of file types with what they are used for - it really is hard to work it all out. I just hope I have got the sequence right to do it again. I guess practice makes perfect.

Then I had to transfer the videos via a pen drive to a mac so that I could edit them easily. I tried the editing package on my laptop - windows movie maker - and found I had to split the movie into sections myself - which took too much time. With the apple package - imovie, this happened automatically and it was so much easier. I found I could insert a movie clip into powerpoint with a mac or my home windows computer. I had thought this was only possible on a mac at first.

I used a couple of TED talks on you tube (originally from http://www.ted.com/) to trial this out, plus a section from a pasifika TV show on making drums in Raratonga, the Cook Islands. It all worked well though the pasifika show was rather low quality, and I now have a useful and interesting powerpoint to use in my teaching. I'll be interested to see what the response is from my students.

I also tried to connect a movie camera to my laptop so I could make and edit my own movies. Unfortunately, even though the camera is only about 3 years old the software "Sony" did not work with vista. I tried to get a download from the Sony website - could find the camera model but not a down load. my next step is to get an ilink cable, which the instruction book tells me will connect the camera directly to a mac. - I'll keep looking for updated software for vista though.

Through all of this I have really begun to understand what being a "digital immigrant" means. The language is so foreign, the culture feels alien, I feel incompetent. I am out of my comfort zone. This is even though I have been using computers as a teaching/learning tool since 1979 when the English High School I was teaching in had a couple of Commodore 64s - I even went on a Basic programming course that year (I have never attempted to write a programme since).

My three children, all in their early twenties, are on the other hand digital natives. The youngest was playing solitaire on a PC at 3 - and that's one of the ways she learned to count. My 20 and 25 year old daughters communicate daily with friends all over the world through facebook and Bebo. These sites are even more important to them than their cell phones. The eldest, with a job in marketing, is involved in emarketing and develping web pages. My 23 year old son composes music on his PC as well as design - he is doing a masters degree in architecture . My husband's business is mechatronics. It is easy to ask any of them for help. However I guess the only way to build my own skills is by doing - trial and error, and putting some time aside to play.

moving on

When I took one of my regular PowerPoints and analysed it, I saw that I could easily reduce the text content down. but then - what would I be left with?

Further reflection led me to a search for the meaning behind my presentation. I asked myself the question - "if students only remembered 10 things about my presentation what should they be?" Next I looked for the affective dimension - how to capture the emotions.

I decided to use photographs as backgrounds and limit the text to just a few words - essentially a single thought or comment. Pare everything back to the essence and match the pictures very carefully with the message I want to give. This was an interesting concept to work with - the visual and the text working together.

I spent ages looking through my own photographs and then started to look through the web. I found a wonderful site called morguefiles.com. This site stores photographs that are free to use - provided attribution is made. By combining my own and other photographs gradually my powerpoint took shape. This process took 4 hours one Sunday afternoon

I tested the powerpoint on various colleagues and the members of the DIL project and got great feedback. "I wish all our lecturers would make PowerPoints like that " said one of our student DIL project members, which was very encouraging. I can't wait to try it out with my own students.

I know that it will take a significant investment of time to change all my presentations to this style, especially as I will also have to produce handouts to go with them. I feel it will give me back the flexibility and creativity in my teaching that I have been craving.

Looking at my presentations in readiness for the next semester of teaching I was totally aware of how many times I was using the templates in powerpoint as backgrounds and how often i have seen those same backgrounds in my colleagues presentations too. On reflection how lacking in originality

Taking the text off the PowerPoints means that I can also be more creative in how I present the content information to students too. My aim is to produce a one to two page handout per powerpoint. I am going to look at "Course Genie" software to see how this might integrate.

One of the things I would like to know now is how to have the PowerPoint notes pages visible on my front desk computer and the slide show version through the data show.

I have bought a new digital camera to use - a shockproof, waterproof Olympus. I can safely carry this around with me - and already I am beginning to capture images that will provide backgrounds for my future slide shows.

end of death by powerpoint

I spent some time reflecting on how to make my PowerPoint presentations more engaging.
What I have noticed is that I, like so many teachers/presenters, seem to have fallen into the trap of making my powerpoints full of the content of our presentation - with endless text and bullet points. I have heard some of my colleagues say that they don't need a lesson plan because it is all in their powerpoint.
I have reached this point in my thinking because of several factors

• a presentation on brain based learning I attended last year where I came across the phrase "Death by PowerPoint" for the first time
• a desire to teach more from a conceptual rather than a content perspective
• thinking about the "crowded curriculum" and who makes it crowded - often me
• reflection on the number of slides I sometimes have in a presentation - mostly of content
• the linear nature of powerpoint - start at the beginning and work through to the end
• a desire to make my presentations more flexible so I can respond to the direction of my students without someone complaining I have missed somenthing out not finished
• a desire to make my presentations more memorable
• an intention to make the talk parts of my classes shorter and have more time for classroom exercises and discussion
• a desire to make more use of images to connect with student emotions
• a reflection that printing powerpoint handouts is not the best way to communicate content with students

I have been watching quite a few TED Talks on the internet and looked carefully at the powerpoint presentations. Many of these were graphics rather than words and the presenters spoke for their alloted 20 minutes without reading from text on the slides. The talks are full of emotion, enthusiasm and interest and I thought I would like to try it

So I took one of my regular powerpoints - mostly text and some images. I analysed it