View the Screencast here
As a follow up to last week's screencast on how to use flickr as a visual resource, here is a post about how to share your wonderfully visual powerpoints with others via your blog or flickr. This is a powerpoint that Cheryl Hanback and I used to lead an N-TEN Affnity Group of technology trainers at last year's Nonprofit Technology Conference. We used some of the ideas presented here as a jumping off point for small group sharing on how to make trainings more interactive. The flickr set has notes and pointers to other resources if you are interested in the content.
After seeing Nancy White's experiment and discovering Amit Agarwal's excellent instructions for Embed Powerpoint Slides as Flash Presentations in your Blog without Spending a Dime, I just had to try it.
I thought it might be really easy, but there were some nuances I didn't understand and it ended up taking me longer than I thought. Since I already invested a bit of time, I figured what the hell, I'll make a screencast.
The instructions from Digital Inspiration were fantastic, but I made a few newbie mistakes that took me more time and were a little frustrating:
1.) I exported the slides a jpg because I didn't have enough bandwidth to upload the pngs as batch without the upload bombing.
2.) I wasn't careful how I placed the photos into my flickr uploader and as a result they didn't appear in the right order in my flickr account and it messed up the slide show order. I took me several bombed uploads to discover how to do it right. So, you have to be careful and put the last in first, second to last second, and so on.
3.) I didn't know how to correctly add the height and width tags - so I needed it spelled out for me. So, I had to google the tag to find an example.
4.) I found the editing of the code to add my specific ID numbers and tags confusing. So, I did it in a way that might be less confusing for someone who isn't experienced with HTML code.
To make matters worse, my five year-old cable modem just couldn't handle recent changes to Comcast's network that allow for more bandwidth. After a few phone calls back and forth between my video host tech support and the cable company and a visit by the cable man with a new modem, I was finally able to get this sreencast uploaded today. However, Liquid Steam's tech support is excellent! (And, now I'm not sure where my upload bombs of png files were due to that problem or not)
Some reflections on my screencast creation process: -I need to learn how to edit out a word in my over and replace it with the correct word. In this case, I described the IFRAME tag as javascript. My heart sank when I realized my mistake (just when I was ready to produce!). Humor always comes in handy!
-I originaly produced this at 800x600 as a SWF with highest quality audio/video and the resulting file was a whooping 72,000 KB. So, decided to invest more time playing around with the production settings on Saturday. I rendered ten different versions (6 in SWF with different audio sampling and video frame rates and sizes) and 2 in Quicktime and 2 in WMF.) In the end, I decided to produce as a SWF at 640x480 size with second to highest audio/video quality. It works. I'm wondering if it took a frustratingly long time for you to download?
-My work flow. I created a storyboard with small scenes. I found that I don't like reading a script word for word, so what works for me is bullet points. So, I set up each scene. Capture my rehearsal. Listen to it. And then tape it again if needed. Then I do a rough edit of the scene (take out the ums, put in markers for captions or zooms to be added later). When the movie is done, I got back and do fine tuning:
-edit out ums - not all of them
-add close ups
-add captions if I forgot to mention something important
-cut out sliences
-add titles and overs
-Then production.
Questions for further exploration ...
-Will the file size be smaller if I set up the shoot/record for a smaller portion versus zoom in editing?
Misc. find from CogDog - Flickr As Screencast Tool
It's great, Beth!
Posted by: Nancy White | October 02, 2006 at 10:35 AM
Beth - The screencast was excellent and very interesting.
The only time consuming part here is photo uploading part where it has be done in a reverse order.
Maybe, we can do some sort of batch renaming to name the files in the reverse order. Will explore that option.
Again, great job.
Posted by: Amit Agarwal | October 02, 2006 at 11:07 AM
Hey Beth -- what tools do you use to create your screencasts?
Amy Gahran
Posted by: Amy Gahran | October 02, 2006 at 11:35 AM
Beth:
Thanks so much for sharing your vlog and blog on how to use Flickr images in power point presentations. I'm in the midst of developing one right now for a workshop and this couldn't have been more timely! I've bookmarked your site to come back to again. Thanks for taking the time to post this.
Chris
Posted by: Chris Brown | October 05, 2006 at 03:22 AM
I liked the presentation!
Posted by: Steve Garfield | October 17, 2006 at 09:10 AM
Actually, Social Bookmarking site is another Web 2.0 option non-profit organisation can explore. It allows u to get quality backlink and free web traffic.
OnlyWire dot com and GetBookmark dot com are 2 very handy tool (free of charge). They each allows u to submit to about 15+ bookmarking sites all at one go. But, u must first create your account with each bookmarking site. This can be quite tedious and boring. The other 2 drawbacks are the sites listed are quite limited (some in the list are not even working) and it does not allow u to use keyword phrase as tag.
For those who are seriously looking at tapping the power of web 2.0 social bookmarking sites to generate good traffic and back links, u may want to do as what I have done => invest in software to automate the job. The one I am using right now is pretty neat. It has more sites listed compared to OnlyWire and it can create accounts for u automatically. It also accepts keyword phrase as tag and let u create multiple profiles so that u do not leave too much footprint on the net in case u are accused of spamming. The best part I like about it is that the software gets updated almost every single month to keep in pace with the latest development of some of the bookmarking sites.
Posted by: Janelle (Social Bookmarking Software - FREE Tool) | January 16, 2008 at 06:22 AM
They say the best cure for water on the brain is a tap on the head.
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Posted by: John Redford | July 21, 2008 at 05:34 PM