Monday, November 5, 2012

A simple way to make video of presentation slides

In July 2012 I visited Port Blair (Capital of Andaman & Nicobar Islands) to conduct a workshop "Master Trainers of Primary Level" to train the teachers teaching in primary schools in Andaman & Nicobar Islands on the use of Wiki-CAL (Computer Aided Learning). 






One of the tasks (as a measure of attainment level) for the participants was to showcase their work outputs they did during the workshop. They created wiki pages and presentation slides. 



In some cases a difficulty was reported by them to record the audio and then embed them to the slides, if it is a continuous narration.

I had used TipCam (a screen recording software) previously and thus asked the participants to try this one. They were asked to give commentary while running their presentation and recording it via TipCam.



After some trials they were able to make a 'talking movie' of their presentations. 



...if you donot hear audio in these two video clips, please donot break your pc...while reloading these the mic was mute  :-)
updated version will be here soon... thanks for your patience..

Here is the presentation with voice:
 
Hope you liked the experiment.
Thanks,
Ramesh Sharma
 

Thursday, June 2, 2011

Do you create flowcharts, mind maps and other diagrams for your class or administration

Dear Colleagues

FREE EDUCATIONAL ACCOUNT FOR UNIVERSITIES

I hope not only for your teaching-learning, even for administrative purposes you might have used flowcharts, mind maps and other diagrams.

LucidChart is the website which can help you in this task.



Many universities are looking for cost-effective alternatives to expensive software packages like Microsoft Visio. Lucidchart is currently offering LucidChart free of charge for 2011 to professors or faculty who request an account for usage in a class or department. These educational accounts are the equivalent of our Team accounts and come equipped with all the premium features.

Hence as a faculty member you can make the request for your class or request an individual account.
See details at

https://www.lucidchart.com/pages/education/university

with best wishes
rcsharma

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Want to convert .pdf to .doc or .rtf?

Dear Colleagues,

At times you may have felt the need to convert pdf to .doc or .rtf.

This utility does this work to great satisfaction (I checked it already with a complex pdf) and results were good.

http://www.pdftoword.com/

Site says:
The Most Accurate PDF-to-Word Converter

Using our PDF-to-Word conversion technology, you can quickly and easily create editable DOC/RTF files, making it a cinch to re-use PDF content in applications like Microsoft Word, Excel, OpenOffice, and WordPerfect.
Best of all, it's entirely free!



In addition to this, you may find this useful to you:

http://www.pdftoexcelonline.com/

The Most Accurate PDF-to-Excel Converter

Use PDF to Excel to quickly and easily create highly-editable XLS files, making it a cinch to re-use tables and spreadsheets from PDF files in Microsoft Excel, OpenOffice, Google Docs, and WordPerfect Office. Best of all, it's entirely free!


PDF to Excel Online

Enjoy the conversion!

R C Sharma

Friday, May 13, 2011

Tool useful to English Language Teachers and Students

Russell Stannard
This tool is amazing. It allows you to convert any website into a clickable page that will immediately connect to a dictionary that gives you the meanings of the words. It also collects the words in a history list and allows you to play games with them. See this to believe it!!!

http://www.teachertrainingvideos.com/lingro/index.html
 
www.teachertrainingvideos.com
The Camtasia Studio video content presented here requires JavaScript to be enabled and the latest version of the Macromedia Flash Player. If you are you using a browser with JavaScript disabled please enable it now. Otherwise, please update your version of the free Flash Player by downloading here.

Tool for your web-conferencing needs

Dear Friends,

For your teaching - learning you may find the need to have web-conferencing facility.
Elluminate is a good tool for that (of course, there are some pricing options for that).

The Blackboard Inc. has launched LearnCentral™  where you get:

    A free 3-seat Elluminate virtual meeting room
    Thousands of community-generated learning resources
    A professional learning directory of your peers
    To participate in LearnCentral events and webinars




To sign up for a free, no obligation three-user version of Elluminate, please visit http://www.getvroom.com


Happy web-conferencing!!


Ramesh Sharma

Saturday, April 16, 2011

Low cost technology (video conferencing) being used in UG

Dear Friends,

On 18th March 2011, we had one experiment where School of Architecture wanted my help to have a two-way-video-two-way-audio conferencing with around 100 participants each at four locations in Guyana, viz. Georgetown, Linden, Berbice and Essequibo. I gave a demo to a student of Mr William Harris on how we can achieve this through Skype. Mr Harris deputed his students to different locations who did the configuration (at Linden, Berbice and Essequibo). At one site there was no webcam available but they could hear us. This conference was for Sustainable Architecture. We were web-casting it from Georgetown. See some images taken at GTI of the session:



Another instance of using technology is by our Personnel Division where now a days overseas candidates are being interviewed via skype. This is helping University in cutting costs for overseas calls.

Skype is can be used for teaching learning too!
See this interesting example, where a skype lesson was held between two countries: Istanbul-Turkey and Nin Brno in Czech Republic on 14 April 2011. 



See, how this can be used for language teaching too!

I am sure our teachers will try this experiment!!

Monday, April 11, 2011

Classroom of the Future & Classroom of 2011 Survey: Masie Centre

The MASIE Center and The Learning CONSORTIUM conducted a survey in March 2011 to examine the current state of the classroom and building a technology wish list for the "classroom of the future."

They received responses from 654 large organizations, detailing current and future uses of classrooms. These organizations included corporate entities (57%), educational institutions (21%), governmental agencies (15%) and non-profit groups (7%) in 46 countries, with the majority of respondents from North America. 

One of the findings:
Top technologies/capabilities desired for newer classrooms mainly include increasingly interactive options for learners and teachers. The list includes: interactive whiteboards, wireless access for learners, camera/microphone to record class, movable furniture, multiple displays, tablets for every learner, video conferencing via webinar and desktop, and audience response systems.

Read in detail at:
http://masieweb.com/classroom2011