Ingredients

1 – Computer with access to the Internet

1 – Instructor access to a Blackboard course (the screencast features BB Enterprise 8 )

1 – Optional – Accounts with YouTube and SlideShare to upload your own videos and presentations

Directions

1. You will need to obtain the “Embed code” from individual video pages from YouTube, or from individual presentation pages at SlideShare.net. On the web page that contains the media, next to each video or presentation is a field labeled “Embed Code”. That code is easily copied, and then can be pasted into the appropriate web page, blog, or Blackboard content area.
2. From the Control Panel, navigate to the area in your Blackboard course where you would like to place the RSS information.
3. Click on the Add (+) Item button to create a new content item.
4. Provide a name for the content item (required)
5. In the Text editor click on the “Toggle HTML Source Mode” button
6. Paste the Embed code from the YouTube video page or SlideShare page into the text field (you can overwrite anything that is initially in the text field)
7. Click on the Submit button

Watch a screencast of this recipe.

Ingredients

1 – Computer

1 – PowerPoint program ( for this example, PowerPoint 2007)

Directions

1. Open PowerPoint 2007.
2. From the Insert ribbon, click the Photo Album button.
3. In the resulting Photo Album window choose the File/Disk button under “Insert picture from…“
4. Navigate to the folder where your photos are and select all of the photos you wish to include.
5. When your photos have been selected click the Insert button.
6. Change the order of the photos or the Album Layout if desired.
7. Click the Create button to create the photo slideshow.
8. You can edit the photo album by clicking on the down arrow under the Photo Album button and choosing Edit Photo Album.

Watch a screencast of this recipe.

Ingredients

1 – Computer

1 – Original PowerPoint presentation file

1 – PowerPoint program ( for this example, PowerPoint 2007)

Directions

1. Open the original PowerPoint presentation in PowerPoint 2007.
2. Click on the “Office button” and choose Save As…
3. Choose from either the standard PowerPoint presentation, PowerPoint Show, or an PowerPoint 97-2003.
4. The Save As window is where you will either keep the same name for the file, or give your presentation a new name if you want to keep the original (we recommend this).
5. Next to the Save button is a Tools button with a drop-down menu. Choose Compress Pictures… from this menu.
6. Click the Options button. Under Compression Options , make sure “Automatically perform basic compression on save”, and “Delete cropped areas of pictures” are checked.
7. Under Target Options , choose E-mail (96ppi) to create the smallest file possible ( if the quality of the pictures becomes an issue, you can choose a higher quality).
8. Click OK to close Options, then click OK to close the Compress Pictures window.
9. Finally, click the Save button to complete the process. The resulting file should considerably smaller, depending on how many pictures you have in the presentation.

Watch a screencast for this recipe.

Ingredients

1 – Powerpoint program (any recent versions) – note: this is for Windows users.

1 – Internet Connection

1 – Firefox web browser (preferred)

1 – Video Download Helper Firefox Add-on (plug-in)

1 – WinFF program

Directions

1. Open the Firefox web browser. Make sure you have established a connection to the Internet.
2. If you haven’t already, navigate to the Mozilla Addons page for the Video Download Helper.
3. Click the button labeled “Add to Firefox”
4. A software installation window will appear. Click the “Install Now” button.
5. You’ll need to restart Firefox in order for the Add-on to work.
6. Find an appropriate video at the YouTube site (this add-on will work with several other video sites as well.
7. The red, yellow, and blue “molecule” in the Firefox toolbar will begin to rotate, indicating that a video is detected and is available to download.
8. Click the down arrow next to the molecule icon. You’ll likely see a list of choices.
9. Select one of the choices presented with a YouTube logo. Videos with [HQ] next to them indicate the higher quality versions.
10. Save the file (it will be an .flv or .mp4 extension) to your hard drive and remember where you saved the file.
11. Start the WinFF program and click the Add button to open the Flash or Mpeg4 video file you saved in the previous step.
12. In the Convert To… box select WMV. In the adjacent box select WMV2.
13. Select an appropriate output folder for the converted file to be saved to.
14. Click the Convert button. You should see a “Converting” output window (with a black screen) displaying the conversion process. Press a key when the process had finished. The window will close.
15. Now open PowerPoint and insert a video in the appropriate slide. Choose either to play the video automatically or play when clicked on. That’s it.