Narrating your lectures in MSPowerPoint: For online classes or pandemic planning

Ever wondered how to narrate your MSPowerPoint slides for an online course - or in case of the H1N1 flu?  Here's how.  I just did a test run - and I found it to be a very easy and user-friendly process.  I am really happy with the results - we'll see what the students said.  Here are some good instructions, direct from the Microsoft website:

To record a voice narration, you need a sound card, microphone, and speakers.

1-On the Outline tab or Slides tab in normal view, select the slide icon or thumbnail that you want to start the recording on.

2-On the Slide Show menu, click Record Narration (see image, below). Click Set Microphone Level, follow the directions to set your microphone level, and then click OK.

3-Do one of the following: Embed or link the narration (I tried both, they both seem to work)

 

4-In slide show view, speak the narrative text into the microphone, and click in the slide to advance. Speak the narrative text for that slide, advance to the next slide, and so on. You can pause and resume the narration (this helped when my phone rang and when I had to take a sip of water).

 

5-At the end of the show, click "save timing."

 

While the files are rather large, a 40 minute lecture uploaded just fine onto WebCT - but would have had to be zipped in order to send as an email.   

 

Enjoy - and let me know how it goes for you!

 

More on moodle: An alternative to Blackboard/WebCT: (from guest blogger Christopher Hudson)

Beginning with the 2009-2010 Academic Year, Salem State’s IT Department has provided an alternative to the Blackboard/WebCT courseware that has been routinely used here at Salem State. Although Blackboard is in many ways quite a versatile tool, many have come to experience it as slow, temperamental, and even clunky. This is partly due to its reliance on the user have just the right Java installed and other settings exactly specified. And then, even when things are finally made to work, they often cease working with automatic Java and other Windows updates.

Unlike Blackboard, Moodle is non-proprietary, open-source software that is freely developed and shared among multiple institutions. Anyone can develop their own modules, tools, or other add-ons. Currently about a dozen SSC faculty are using it for their courses, and in my case, I have been extremely pleased with its ease of use, robustness, and the speed of its responsiveness. As far as I can determine, it is able to do all that Blackboard can do, and then some. A listing of the major tools available for both students and faculty include: blogs, calendars, chat rooms, choice (polls), forums or bulletin boards, glossaries, lesson modules, quiz/test modules, RSS feeds, survey modules, and Wikis.

It is also possible to use a variety of file types, whether Word or .pdf’s or audiovisual formats, and to tailor the selection and presentation of the materials and tools for particular courses. There are also about a dozen or so different background themes that can be selected to give the particular presentation of material in a course a distinctive look.

The learning curve so far is slightly easier than that with Blackboard. There are a few procedures that are not obvious, such as uploading files, but once mastered, they become quite routine. I recommend trying it out for one of your courses, but first take one or a few of Gail Rankin’s workshops. I can’t comment on use of all the different tools, as I have not used all of them all yet, but so far I am thrilled that we have this option, and suspect that I will soon be migrating all of my courses over to Moodle. If it continues to be as successful as it appears, Blackboard will probably disappear in the next year or two since Moodle, being free, would represent a huge savings for the College.

Here are a few links and resources to help you get started:

< Portal to Moodle courses at Salem State:

< Information put together by Gail Rankin in IT:

< Orientation Video --The video is from Paul Treadwell, Distance Learning Consultant, Cornell University:

< Moodle Workshops at Salem State College (Fall 2009)
< And here’s a crosswalk of Blackboard and Moodle terminology (click here) 

If you would like to request a Moodle site for one of your courses, email Gail Rankin at: grankin@salemstate.edu, and provide her the name, course number and section, semester, and the 4-digit course code for your course.

Many thanks to Dr. Christopher Hudson, one of our guest bloggers...

What do "blogs" have to do with social work...

Not a simple question, not a simple answer.  Let's start with what a "blog" is.  Blog is short for "web log" - sort of like an online journal.  You can read more about how blogs came into existence here.

To quote wikipedia - "A blog (a contraction of the term "weblog")[1] is a type of website, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order. "Blog" can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog."

Some argue that the Internet age has led to the development of everyday exhibitionism - about all facets of life.  Mommy blogs, daddy blogs, disgruntled worker blogs, intellectual debater blogs, literary criticism blogs, blogs about not sure exactly what....what is for sure is that this is a way to see into other people's ways of viewing and experiencing the world.  In my own life, I blog for several reasons. First, I blog here to create a space for social work academics to keep up with what's up in technology. Second, I co-blog on teaching social work research methods to document the joys and challenges of that process - and to create a reflective place for discussion of how best to do this work. Third, I have a blog about things I am working on - personal creative stuff (photography, cooking exploits) and professional (research, projects) - I like to get that out there so that I have a bit of control about what stuff related to me is on the Internet We all have our reasons - this is just my own outlet.


Social workers are blogging about their everyday experiences - blogging to organize - blogging to document.  You can consider blogging on a project you are working on - perhaps work with a community coalition - so that when people google it, the voice of the work is there. You can consider blogging with your class about the collective experience of your group process around the topics you are teaching and your students are learning...you can think of many other ways to use blogs.  Here is a wonderful blog on social work-focused blogs - click here.  Social work blogs range from a self-proclaimed anti-social worker to Jonathan Singer's wonderful social work podcast.



Creating a blog is free - you can go to wordpress or blogspot.com to start the process....or compare different online blogging tools here - have fun!

Teaching clinical social work skills through online courses...join the debate!

Nationwide, social work faculty have been abuzz about the joys and challenges, pros and cons of online teaching in social work over the past few years...indeed we had a stimulating discussion about this pedagogical approach in our own faculty meeting the other day.  In order to further the debate, please check out this extract of an evaluation of an online course targeted at teaching clinical practice skills...

Siebert, D., Siebert, C. and Spaulding-Givens, J.  (2006).  Teaching clinical social work skills primarily online: an evaluation.  Journal of Social Work Education, Spring-Summer.

Teaching clinical social work skills primarily online: an evaluation

SOCIAL WORK EDUCATORS have not been among early adopters of Internet-mediated courses; a search of the literature finds very few peer-reviewed articles about this topic prior to 2000, and the small number of articles since that time are primarily about Web-enhanced rather than Web-mediated social work courses (e.g., Faul, Frey, & Barber, 2004). Even fewer articles describe evaluations of Internet-based instruction, and none report on the evaluation of skills-based clinical courses. Skills-based clinical courses that require interactive instruction are frequently regarded as inappropriate for online teaching (Moore, 2004), as the social work discipline's focus on human interaction and hands-on teaching of practice skills can seem incompatible with technology-mediated education. Nevertheless, social work programs are implementing some courses that are partially Internet-mediated (Knowles, 2001), while others are offering entire clinical social work courses online (Siebert & Spaulding-Givens, 2006).

Other disciplines have begun to evaluate clinical courses taught online, and the consensus is that technology-mediated courses (Russell' 1999; Young, 2000) and entirely online courses (Feldhaus & Fox, 2004; Yucha & Princen, 2000) can provide learning that is equivalent to face-to-face courses. Others find that online students can also become better learners and score higher on exams as a result of the online format (Thiele, 2003). However, research in helping disciplines (e.g., nursing) consistently finds that online students express frustration with the medium, prefer classroom interaction, and worry that their opportunities for learning are not commensurate with face-to-face classroom learning (Thiele, Allen, & Stuckey, 1999; Woo & Kimmick, 2000; Yucha & Princen, 2000). Comparisons with specific elements of previous studies are embedded individually in the text of this article because differences in the disciplines, content of coursework, measurement, research design, and sampling make more than the most general comparisons quite difficult (i.e., "comparing apples with oranges").

...for the rest of the article, click here.

5 Useful Free Online Tools Teachers and Students Can Use

1. Evernote. (http://www.evernote.com)

Get rid of your yellowing spirals and turn on your computer. This handy free program is a note-organizing wizard that can capture any legible scrawl, whether it’s your own archives of handwritten notes, a classroom blackboard, or Word documents, and turn it into a searchable text file. You can add additional tags and labels to make it easier to find, or search within the content for specific pieces of information.

2. PDF Online. (http://www.pdfonline.com/)

If you’ve ever needed to change a Word document to a PDF file or vice versa, but are not around a scanner capable of operating the conversion, then point your browser to PDF Online. The website allows you to convert any Word or PDF document on your computer to the other, which is then emailed to you as an attachment. The final product is not watermarked, so it’s yours to keep.

3. Google Docs (docs.google.com)

You don’t have to figure out everyone’s schedules to set up a meeting time for group projects anymore with Google Docs. Now any group member can create documents or upload them online, and other members can collaborate from the comfort of their own homes. The application also allows individual users to organize the files, making team work a breeze.

4. WorldCat (http://www.worldcat.org)

Finding books and reference materials for research can seem daunting to those accustomed to the ease of internet research, but WorldCat makes the task easy and efficient. The online catalog has records of books in libraries around the world, and all you need to do is type in an author, title, or subject into the search bar. Once you find a title of interest, type in your zip code and WorldCat will look up the libraries closest to you that have the book. You won’t ever have to worry about fruitless library research again.

5. Grade Guru (http://www.gradeguru.com)

Students and teachers alike can share notes on this website, and star note sharers can even earn some extra cash. Users swap notes on specific topics, so studying becomes more in depth than any textbook or classroom lecture recordings can cover. Students who are struggling to understand a concept can have it explained in different ways by different people, so there’s bound to a light bulb moment where understanding is achieved.

This post was contributed by our guest blogger, Hannah Watson, who writes about how to take classes online. She welcomes your feedback at HannahWatson84@ yahoo.com.

What to do when your students say they can't access readings on WebCT/Blackboard

So, classes have commenced.  Your most eager students are writing to you on a Friday or Saturday night about their inability to access their readings on WebCT/Blackboard.  What do you do?

1-Determine whether your student can get into WebCT/Blackboard or not.  If they cannot get in, registration and payment must be taken care of before students are linked to the WebCT/Blackboard sites for their courses.If they have registered (not just pre-registered with the SSW) and paid for the class, they should be able to get in to the program.  If they are having trouble logging in, they should call the 24-hour help line at 978-542-2036.  I have used this help line on many occasions, even at 3 a.m. once, and the service was fairly speedy and helpful.  This is an off-site service that has been contracted out, so your students will not be talking to someone at SSC.

2-If your student can get into WebCT/Blackboard but can't see and/or open files...tell your student to run the "browser check" listed at the top right of the "mywebcourses" page.  This check will guide them through the settings they may need to change in order to be able to view and/or open files.  This checking process will also determine whether they are using a web browser that is not supported for use with WebCT/Blackboard.

3-Remind your student that accessing WebCT/Blackboard is their responsibility - akin to the purchase of a textbook.  You are not responsible for helping them through the process.  Many faculty make a note to this effect in their syllabi in order to stem the flow of such calls/emails and the excuses that can come along as well.  Always direct them to the 24-hour help line!

Good luck!