No programming necessary!

The promise of multimedia presentation software
for creating quality learning objects

Web poster presentation by Eli Collins-Brown and Cheri Toledo
Illinois State University
Curriculum & Instruction

Background and Experience

• PowerPoint has been used by instructors for presenting their content in the classroom since the mid-1990s.
  • What works well in the classroom may not work well online.
  • Advantages to student learning from multimedia
    • Reading text from computer monitor difficult
    • adding a proper mix of media enhances retention and transfer (Meyer et al. 2001, Moreno & Meyer, 1999)
    • Specifically, adding narration, not online text, most beneficial
    • Adding audio to PowerPoint may improve student learning
  • PowerPoint can be problematic - browser, operating system, and version compatibility problems
• Possible solutions?
  • screen capture software packages and their promise of being able to create “high quality visual learning resources, enriched with captions, audio, animations, and more “ (Macromedia.com).

Experience

In 2000, while Eli was working as an instructional designer in the Center for Distance Education at the University of Texas at Arlington, she was presented with the challenge of converting existing PowerPoint presentations into media presentations for online delivery:

• At that time there were fewer options than are available today.
• For one course they used LiveSlideShow (LSS) (http://www.liveslideshow.com/), by Totally Hip, to add audio and user-control functions to the professor’s existing PowerPoint files. The process was fairly straightforward, once we figured out how to create the movies.
  • Pre-written and rehearsed script recorded in studio by professor
  • Audio edited for any imperfections and cut into smaller files
  • An individual file would contain the audio for one individual slide
    
• The PowerPoint was touched up by applying sound design principles
  • a slide for each additional bullet point or animation
  • saved PowerPoint file as individual Jpegs or graphic
    
• The audio and slides files were imported into LSS
  • Exported to a QuickTime format.
  • Pass through compression software
  • Here is an example - CSE5350 (this opens in a new window. Close the window to return to this presentation).

Cheri had previously used Viewlet Builder to create tutorials. In the Fall of 2004, Cheri taught Instructional Technology Design at Illinois State, in which Eli was enrolled is as part of her doctoral studies. Both are interested in finding and experimenting with new software and how it might be used to create well-design, effective instruction, and saw examples of some of the more popular software on the market today during this class. So they decided to do some experimenting themselves and this presentation is a result of that ‘playing’.

This web site was created for a conference presentation made on Thursday, February 16, 2005.
Please contact the presenters will any questions.

©2005 Eli Collins-Brown and Cheri Toledo