I recently attended a workshop held by Center for Teaching and Learning. The workshop introduced several technologies that may be used in classrooms. I will try to share a few among them that I think useful.
my Brainshark
First one is my Brainshark (http://my.brainshark.com). This is a free web tool that enables you to create and share multi-media presentations.
A basic use of my Brainshark will be creating a narrated presentation. You just upload your powerpoint slides and record your narration for each page. If there are some animation actions in your slides, my Brainshark shows them, too.
Combination of media
A very nice thing about this is you can mix powerpoint slides (.ppt, .pptx, & .odp), video files (.wmv, .swf, & .flv), and documents (.doc, .docx, .pdf, .xls, .xsx, .odt, & .txt) in one single presentation. And you can add attachment files to the presentation that users can download.
Seeing is believing. Watch an example multimedia presentation by my Brainshark.
Possible usage in the classroom
In-class PowerPoint project presentations are used in many classes. However, they take a lot of class time and are often poorly delivered. As suggested in the workshop, instructors can ask students (or student teams) to create a multimedia presentation. And once uploaded, instructors and other students can view/review the presentations online at anytime.
Limitations
- Presentations uploaded in my Brainshark is available to the public. A paid version offers the ability to make presentations private.
- Uploads of individual content files are limited to 200MB.
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