Tool: Viddix (click on image at right to see an presentation created using Viddix)

Requirements: Internet-connected PC w/ Audio & Video capability

Cost: Free

Creating wonderful interactive, multi-media presentations is quite simple with this tool!  When you're finished, you have a great re-usable learning object that your students can benefit from for several semesters.  :)

Tell us about your Viddix experiences on our Viddix Contributions page.

Example Uses

• introduce yourself & your course
• present content & encourage discussion about it
• ...

Benefits

• multi-media component engages learners
• interactive component holds learners' attention
• online viewing & interacting can be done over many courses - providing you with a great reusable learning object

Tutorials

• links to tutorials

How'd She Do That?

Creating my Viddix Presentation was a multi-step process because I included many different elements.  Here's an outline of the basic steps I took to create it:

1. Because I knew I was going to have to edit a lot of different video formats and put them all together into one video file, I checked what formats my video editor would be able to import.  Since I used Windows Movie Maker for this project, I knew that AVI and WMV formats would be acceptable.
2. After deciding the topic of my presentation, I created storyboard to clearly indicate what would be presented in the left and right screens and in what order.
3. I created a folder on my desktop to contain all my media elements so I could keep everything organized as I created it.
4. Using my logitech 5000 web cam, I captured my intro and my wrap up videos. The resolution of these videos was 640X480 and 30fps or frames per second). The output of these videos was WMV files.
5. Using the free CamStudio video screen capture software, I my screen movements and voice as I demonstrated the three sites I presented. I did each site as a separate video screen capture so that if I made a mistake I wouldn't have to redo all three sites.  I captured at a resolution of 640X480 and 30fps. The output of these video screen captures was an AVI file.
6. Using a static screen capture tool (I use Snipping Tool because it came as free software on my Windows Vista machine), I captured the screen shots of my blog and wiki at 640X480 JPG files.
7. Using Windows Movie Maker (Free!), I imported the two videos of me and the 3 videos of the web sites and arranged them in the order I wanted them in, added title slides, clip text, and credit slide.  Then, I exported everything as a 320X240 WMV file because I knew that Viddix would import that file type.
8. Using Viddix, I uploaded the WMV file. Viddix converts the uploaded video to an FLV file so uploading takes a bit of time!
9. After uploading the file, I used Viddix to add the content that shows up on the right side of the screen - text, links, images (that I captured back in step 6), and polls - at the appropriate points on the movie timeline and then reviewed it to make sure it looked half-way decent. Then, I published it so it would be "live" and so I could have the link to the presentation to put here on this wiki and in other places.

This project took about 8 hours to complete (counting all the scripting, the video mistakes that had to be re-done, etc.)  But, don't be discouraged! It was a fairly complicated project and it was the first time I used this tool.  If I had had more experience, the project would have taken about 2 hours (not counting file conversion, compression, and upload times!).   Since what you're essentially creating is a re-usable learning object, you can justify the amount of time it takes to do something like this because you will use the same presentation for many courses before it becomes outdated.