Academic Tech Tips

Panopto, Loyola’s lecture capture software, has some exciting new features. Panopto now allows users to easily upload slides to an existing session, change the thumbnail image for a session, access speech-to-text captions, and add quizzes to a session. For instructions on updating slides or thumbnail images, please click here.

Automatic captions are now available to creators of a session. As the creator of a session you will be able to import and edit captions generated from Panopto, as well as release these captions to viewers. For instructions on importing automatic captions, please click here. If you do not see the option to “Import automatic captions”, please contact itrs@luc.edu and request for your session to be re-processed.

Users now have the ability to add quizzes to Panopto sessions. This includes sessions they recorded in Panopto and sessions they uploaded to Panopto. Quiz questions can be multiple choice, multiple select, or true/false. Viewers must be logged in to take a quiz in a Panopto session. Once a viewer completes the quiz, creators will have access to the quiz results for that session. For more information on Panopto quizzes, please click here.

If you teach, train or support computer users, using screen captures can be an efficient way to provide instructions.  Taking multiple screen shots and formatting your images in a word processing program can be time-consuming.  Screen Steps is an all-in-one program that allows you to capture images, add text and annotations then export your document to Word, PDF, html or a blog or Web page.

Cost – 39.95 with the option to take an additional 15% education discount: http://www.bluemangolearning.com/screensteps/purchase/

Screen Steps Help Resources:
http://bmls.screenstepslive.com/spaces/screensteps/manuals/screensteps

A screenshot is an image taken of the computer screen or a portion of the screen. These images can be useful for creating a demonstration of a program or even for recording a problem on your computer. You can easily take a screenshot on a Mac or PC without installing additional software.

For PC

1. On the upper right-hand side of your keyboard, press PrtScn.
2. The screenshot will be copied onto your clipboard. Open any image-editing program like Paint and click on Paste or use the keyboard command: Control-V.
3. Save the image.

For Mac

1. On your keyboard, press Command (Apple Key) – Shift – 3, in this order, to capture the entire screen.  Or press, Command – Shift – 4 to highlight and select an area of the screen to capture.
2. The image will be saved to your desktop.

Screen Capture Software

If you are interested in more advanced features for taking screen captures, there are quite a few useful programs out there.   SnagIt, for PC, allows you to edit your image by highlighting areas, adding call-outs, arrows, text and more. Snagit is very useful for creating tutorials; it runs about $50.  SnapzPro, for Mac, enables you to record anything on your screen and save as a Quicktime movie; it runs about $70.