Technology ROCKS - an assignment

Technology is our friend in higher education.  We must not be afraid of it.  We must embrace its limitlessness and forge ahead if we want to stay current (and relevant) in our positions.

This page may not be of interest to you.  It is intended to outline one process of bringing a dull Power Point presentation to life by using technology.  It was an assignment for class.

The assignment was to create a technology piece related to higher education administration.  No simple task.  I wasn't sure how to approach this, so I called in the Calvary;  Our Curricular and Instructional Technologists.  They suggested I begin with a "need" in my area of higher education...

One of my responsibilities at my institution is to educate students and employees to discover and utilize their strengths.  I do this, as many other administrators do, by using a combination of Power Point and face to face instruction.  I use the program StrengthsQuest (as discussed in my other blogs and pages).  Here is the problem:  We have a growing population of both commuters who have no time to stay after class to attend a workshop, and online learners who are not typically on campus at all except to do transactional business.  Here is my solution:

The need.  Online learners and over extended (obligation-stretched) students did not have the same opportunity to attend my introduction to StrengthsQuest workshop as did traditional face-to-face (f2f) learners.

The question.  How do I transform my f2f workshop into an online workshop?

I asked the experts.  I met with the Curricular and Instructional Technology (CIT) Director.  I spun my idea and he assigned me to an educational designer (ED).

The brainstorming.  I met with my ED and discussed different ways to accomplish my goal.  We decided on using a combination of PowerPoint (ppt.) and  Camtasia Studios (cam) inside  our online learning system of Angel (which will be changing to blackboard in the fall). http://www.techsmith.com/camtasia.html# (click on the overview video to see a demo of Camtasia)

The tweaking.  I enhanced my current ppt. by adding additional text to the slides that I normally cover in a conversation.  It was challenging to verbalize the f2f scenarios.  For example, I am present when they sign on to the website and take the inventory.  In the online experience they do this on their own.  To accomplish this instruction, I had to include a “capture” of the website to demonstrate how to do that.  I also had to add a verbatim script as I would be recording my voice.  The script would also be used as closed captioning.

The instruction.  I learned how to use the cam program to accomplish these steps:

Edit the document (ppt. within the framework of cm)

Record the audio (the actual script)

Splice out the “oops” (keep recording and start over, and over J)

Sync the audio with the script for CC (tricky part)

Steps to final production:

Ppt. - Cam recording - Cam Project - SWF. File (movie) - Production

The process from start to finish took 22 hours during work time and 21 hours on my own time. 

The result is only the beginning intro and the first part of the 3-part workshop (a third of the expected final product). 

Subsequent steps will include:

Producing part two and three in cam.

Creating video clips for each of the 34 themes.  This is done with a movie camera.  I will have other team members involved.

Formatting the online “page” in Angel (blackboard). 

Since the final product is the educational property of my institution, I cannot include it on this public site.  The purpose was not to show you the "product" it was to outline the "process".