Hi Rick, My wife and I participated in Second Life for a short while about 3 years ago. We bailed on it when we found it to be a terrible time sink for us when it was effectively an avatar based chat room.
But, time has moved on and I hear a lot about virtual classrooms and other uses that seem pretty powerful. We may research it more for such uses. -- Paul Bernhardt Frostburg State University Frostburg, MD, USA On 1/18/09 4:55 PM, "Rick Stevens" <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > > > > Tim suggested that I tell a little more about Camtasia. > > I have used it to capture myself (and a small puppet) for short intros to just > explain some minor points. You can save in various video formats. > > You can edit small clips together with transitions (fade to black or various > effects to dress up the change). You can make title pages after making the > clips and you can go in and add callouts. These are arrows or post-it notes > with comments about the video. They fade in for a few seconds and then go > away. > > What I have done the most of is voice-overs for PowerPoints. You can capture > the PowerPoint window as you advance slides and talk as you go. I used to > teach an online intro class so I took many of my regular class PowerPoints and > did voice-overs making them a lot like a lecture. I didn't see any need for > them to see my face so I didn't do the picture in picture. I was told that it > added a lot to the file size, too. > > There are some quiz and survey functions that I never tried. There is a group > on campus that gets together and self-educates on online class technology > stuff. It was helpful at first to go through some of the basics with a group > all figuring out the same things, but once I got through the process of > producing a finished product I decided that it wasn't hard to use. > > While I'm on the topic of teaching technology I was wondering if any Tipsters > had gone on to their Second Life. That's not joining the Choir Invisible but > joining the world virtual of Second Life. I started setting up an illusion > display when I thought that I'd still be teaching online. Since then I have > moved to doing memory studies there. My first will be a poster at APS this > summer. I'm going to start two more soon. I'm trying to force my grad > research methods class to do some practice experiments that way. My avatar > name is at the bottom of my signature. If any of you are closet avatars you > can feel free to IM me and to drop by the ULM island. > --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([email protected])
