Tonight, I've been checking out some of the brilliant 'how to' tutorials on VideoJug and picking up lots of practical tips and tricks for the classroom. The clip above gives a step by step guide on how to create a big book in PowerPoint which could be particularly valuable to primary colleagues who like reading stories to their pupils in a foreign language supplemented with appropriate images and sound effects.
The author Jonathan White mentions a number of useful links to get you started:
- How to create Talking Books in PowerPoint 97 & 2000 - a free guide by Richard Walter
- PowerTalk - free Text-to-Speech software for PowerPoint
- AviScreen - free screen recording software
For embedding sound, I would suggest using Audacity though to create an mp3 file and then use the CDex trick to incorporate it into the presentation as the sound quality will be better than recording straight into PowerPoint.
Other 'jug highlights include:
- Useful Shortcuts For Microsoft PowerPoint
- How To Use Shortcuts For Microsoft Word
- Useful Shortcuts For Windows Media Player
- How To Make A Podcast Part 1: Planning And Preparation
- How To Make A Podcast Part 2: Recording And Editing
- How To Make A Podcast: Part 3 - Publishing
- How To Subscribe To Podcasts In iTunes
- How To Submit A Podcast To iTunes
- Practical RSS: Introduction To RSS - Episode 1
- Practical RSS: Keeping Current - RSS And News - Episode 2
- How To Share Your Digital Photos Online
- How To Set Up Your Own Blog
- How To Watch Your iPod Videos On Your TV
- How To Use Twitter
I think they speak for themselves.
It's funny you should post about this! My students made some talking books in Indonesian last term and I've been slowly uploading them to slideshare.net to have a play (and for them to have a play) and see what we can do with them...
Some of the "books" have been too big to upload, others had too many identifying details, some included silly background comments, and some I just haven't gotten around to yet, but the kids have been pretty impressed with the views they've been getting.
http://www.slideshare.net/pcoutas
Definitely has potential as a hosting site to then post on blogs/myspace/etc.etc.etc.
Posted by: Penny | 29/11/2007 at 07:54
Hi Joe - thanks for posting about VideoJug and PowerPoint. I use VideoJug all the time but had not thought of checking out their videos on software. My favourite video when demonstrating embedding videos from VideoJug is How to Do a Great Homie Handshake. My participants at workshops always crack up laughing.
Posted by: Sue Waters | 29/11/2007 at 10:06
Some great links in here, Joe. I met with our Craft instructor today as he puts the finishing touches to some summative assessment PowerPoints. We looked at the sound recorder in XP, then downloaded PowerTalk - very nice. If you have purchased any 'real' voices for your computer previously eg AT&T/TextAloud etc, PowerTalk will detect this.
Posted by: David Noble | 30/11/2007 at 21:29