I have become a real fan of the Moodle "BOOK" which is a means of adding a resource onto your Moodle. It is not a default module so you will need to ask your administrator to install it.The reason I am such a fan... I find the teenage boys that I teach don't like accessing powerpoints that I put on Moodle because they have to wait for their computer to download the file, then they need to wait for the powerpoint software itself to open and this all takes precious time. Then there are the students who don't know where their downloaded files end up on their computer as sometimes the settings have it go to their documents folder and it all gets a bit confusing for an impatient 13 year old.
So I started using the Book. It opens to reveal the contents in the browser so they don't need to wait and they can easily turn the pages by clicking on the arrows or use the page titles on the left to jump to the necessary information they are after.
So I have been taking screenshots of powerpoints and various other things and created these Moodle books to replace content I once was sharing via powerpoint presentations. That has created the need to find some screen capturing tools - I have found two pieces of software which I am using. Yes I know I can do the old "command+shift+4" on my mac but then I was opening these screenshots in fireworks to annotate them and it was a very time consuming process. So I found some user-friendly software to help me out.
Skitch - is super-easy to use and did not cost me anything!
I like the way that instantly I can annotate the screenshot, crop it or resize it and then with a quick drag of the mouse it is saved as a useable file. It is super easy to use and a really handy tool.
Snagit - I have just downloaded the beta version of Snagit. I was impressed when I watched the video and it showed that it could scroll down a page and continue the screen capturing selection for the screenshot - but this feature has not worked for me. It would be really good it this scrolling selection worked and give the developers a bit more time I'm sure they will get it working. It has some excellent annotating tools and I'll keep trialling it.
3 comments:
Hey Mel... One other alternative to the book (rather than taking screen shots) is to either turn your PowerPoint into a PDF or use it straight up and upload it to either SlideShare or Scribd, and use their document embedding features in Moodle....
Thanks Jason for your ideas - the beauty of the book is it opens virtually instantly and there is no need to wait while being directed to a website like slideshare. Here in NZ our internet speeds are less than desirable which is why I prefer the book option.
Incidently, slideshare enables you to embed html code for your presentation and that means you can use powerpoints on slideshare in the "reading material" section of hot potatoes exercises.
Thanks Jason for your comments.
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