BlackBoard Question of the Week

Q. I would like to create a short instructional video of information from a website with me talking in the background. Any suggestions for how I might do that and make the video available to my students in Blackboard? 

A. There are several options for making a video with narration and screen capture: 

• - There is free software available online at Screenr  that allows you to up to 5 minute clips of screen capture with narration. Screenr produces a flash file that can be uploaded to Blackboard. 
• - An option you will find inside Blackboard is Wimba Voice Presentation, which allows you to add narration and text to a selection of URLs. You can add a Voice Presentation in any Blackboard content area under “Add Interactive Tool.” For a quick video tutorial on adding a Voice Presentation, visit http://www.wimba.com/assets/videos/Presenter/Presenter.html . For text instructions, visit page 8 of the Wimba Voice Tools User Guide http://www.wimba.com/assets/resources/BB_42_User_Guide_91.pdf
• - We also have software — Camtasia Studio and Captivate —  and a recording room available for Loyola faculty and staff at the Lakeshore campus that will enable you to record narration and screen capture.  For more information and to reserve the room, please contact Blackboard@luc.edu.

Q. A student asked me if there was any way that she could download my Powerpoint lectures from Blackboard onto a CD so that she can listen to them in the car on her way to and from work. Is this possible? 

A. The answer depends on the format of your narrated Powerpoint lectures.  If they were created in Articulate, they are Flash files and cannot be downloaded (but if you saved the source files in Articulate, the audio files should still be there in a separate folder and you could post those for download).

But if you recorded your lectures in Powerpoint, they can be converted to mp4, which is a format that can be downloaded. You could post those files directly in your Blackboard course, or you could set up an iTunes U area for your course and post them there. Students who wanted to load them onto their ipods could do that in iTunes, or any of your students could download the files and then burn them to a CD.

For assistance with file conversion Loyola faculty should email blackboard@luc.edu.

For instructions for setting up a Loyola iTunes U area, please visit iTunes U in Blackboard.

Q. I will need to miss a couple of sessions of my Fall 2011 class. Is there any way I can pre-record and upload a lecture for students to listen to in my absence? 

A. If you are using Powerpoint slides, Articulate will allow you  to record your slides and narration and save your presentation in a compressed format that will be easier for students to access than if you record directly into Powerpoint. Articulate is available in the Digital Media Room in the Granada Center and Loyola faculty can reserve the room and get assistance with recording by emailing blackboard@luc.edu. Instructions for recording can be found at Narrating Powerpoint in Articulate . 

Another option for recording a lecture is Wimba Live Classroom, which gives you the option to record your slides and narration directly into Blackboard. You can find instructions for recording and posting at  Record a Presentation with Wimba Live Classroom .