TeacherTube too slow – better equivalent?
May 4, 2009 4:06 PM   Subscribe

How do I put a powerpoint presentation or video equivalent of it online so that my students can use it to learn?

Hi there,

I'd like to put a powerpoint presentation or video equivalent online so that my students can learn from it. Here is what I've tried to do up until now in order to make this work without success. The idea is to have certain sentences and sentence structures online in a different language to help my students learn a second language.

– I created a website on wordpress that allowed me to upload mp3s and play them with a flash player. My school board then blocked the site because it was on wordpress and so I couldn't show it at school.
– I created powerpoints of my work and uploaded them to teachertube, but the powerpoints don't automatically play the sound from slide to slide (you have to click this option each time and it becomes very tedious to do so). If I try making these powerpoints on the PC the sound quality is not good enough. I made the powerpoints on the Mac and the sound is great, but the slides won't automatically play the sounds on PCs.
– I created video exports of my slides from Powerpoint and uploaded those to TeacherTube but it takes too long for these videos to stream for them to be useful (imagine you are 14 and you have to wait 15 seconds for a video to start playing and compare that with an experience with YouTube).

So – I need to be able to show this work at school so that my students will be enthusiastic enough to try it at home. I have a school website but have not been able to figure out how to put the Flash media code on that website to play the mp3s. I can make Powerpoint slides with the Mac but the don't play the sounds automatically within a PC. I can make the video exports but TeacherTube is too slow.

How do I make either a site that will play many Flash type mp3 players OR a powerpoint that will automatically play sounds per slide with one general click (I would record them on the Mac, download to PC and then convert this option) OR some other option that allows a. mp3 sound + b. text + NOT blocked by school board = reptition for memorising sentences in a foreign language.


A sincere thanks to anyone that reads through this to help me. I have put an inordinate amount of time into trying to solve this.
posted by fantasticninety to Computers & Internet (10 answers total) 2 users marked this as a favorite
 
SlideShare's Slidecasting.
posted by zsazsa at 4:11 PM on May 4, 2009


If you insert the sound file (WAV file) into the slide, and set it to play automatically, it will work in Presentation mode. Is this what you mean, though?
posted by Houstonian at 4:27 PM on May 4, 2009


If I understand correctly, you want to be able to show this content at school only as a promotion so that the students can try it at home. I'd recommend considering a two-pronged approach.

When you're at school you don't need to use a remote hosting solution because your computer is right there in the classroom with you. Simply play the content on your local computer without streaming it over the internet. If you can't get the sounds to autoplay in Powerpoint then just set up a series of basic HTML pages with the clips embedded. If the volume isn't great, buy a pair of speakers for around $10.

When the students are at home, the Wordpress site you originally created shouldn't be blocked to them, so that's still a viable strategy.
posted by Jeff Howard at 4:31 PM on May 4, 2009


Response by poster: To Houstonian – let's say I make a powerpoint on the Mac with good sound quality and then transfer it to me PC, it won't play the mp3s automatically with each slide.

I have to choose each slide individually and change how the sound is played. I haven't figured out a way to select all 50 slides and choose an option to have the sounds play automatically for all of them. If so, that would be a possible way of doing this.

To Jeff Howard – the two pronged approach is a good one and I'll definitely consider it. Can one set the HTML pages to play the embedded clips automatically? If so, how?
posted by fantasticninety at 4:42 PM on May 4, 2009


Follow these steps:
1. On the Insert menu, click Movies and Sound and then Sound From File. The Insert Sound window displays.

2. Navigate to, and then select, the sound file you want to insert. If you are inserting an MP3, you may need to change the Files of Type field. Click OK.

3. You should get a popup window asking if you want the sound to play Automatically or When Clicked. If you get this popup, click Automatically.

3. If you didn't get the popup, or if you've already inserted your sounds in this way, on the Slide Show menu, click Custom Animation. The Custom Animation pane displays on the right of the window. It shows the sound you've inserted, and when it will play.

4. On the Custom Animation pane, in the Start field, select After Previous.

5. Repeat these steps for all slides.

6. Save the presentation as a PPT file.

7. Save the presentation again, but this time as a PPS file: On the Save As dialog box, in the Save as Type field, choose PowerPoint Show (*.pps). A PPS file is a presentation, but when you open the file it displays the presentation in Presentation mode automatically.

8. Place the PPS file on Teacher Tube.

If you want the slides to run one-after-another without the student clicking to progress to the next slide, you can do that, too.
posted by Houstonian at 4:44 PM on May 4, 2009


I saw your response after I posted. My solution requires you make one change to each slide. If you wanted to change the slide transitions, you could do that all at once. But, I cannot think of a way to change all custom animations at once.
posted by Houstonian at 4:50 PM on May 4, 2009


Response by poster: To Houstonian – I appreciate your post regardless as I was never really sure if "after previous" was the option to choose. Also, I didn't know about the option of saving as a PPS which is really good to know! Thanks.
posted by fantasticninety at 4:58 PM on May 4, 2009


Here's a basic tutorial on embedding a sound within an HTML page. You'd want to set "autoplay" to true so that each sound plays automatically once you load the page.
posted by Jeff Howard at 5:03 PM on May 4, 2009


Doesn't Google Docs allow you to do all this?
posted by KokuRyu at 5:09 PM on May 4, 2009


Adobe Presenter may work well for you, and has a 30-day fully functional trial. I recently used it to do what you describe. It converts the PPT file to Flash, and also adds some additional functionality. It's pretty slick.
posted by Roach at 9:48 PM on May 4, 2009


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