A way to begin the development of these interactive videos and audios is to map out what it is you want to accomplish within a given lesson and break the information that needs to be conveyed into 60-second sound bites with an introduction that states the thesis, a body that explains, interprets, or exemplifies, and a conclusion that states the impact of the idea on the discourse and provides the significance of the thesis. The accompanying slides should follow the same logical sequence of discussion, and, when appropriate, include links to a website managed by the teacher who will have editorial power over the pages therein. This way, you will not have to recreate the clip every time an external link breaks. To update the material on any of the clips, you will need only go to the webpage on which that material appears and modify it to include whatever developments or corrections you wish to incorporate. The links within your PowerPoints embedded within the clips will always work in that case, and you can even put a small notification field on each of your web pages asking your audience to inform you if anyone discovers a broken link so that your maintenance is regulated by your viewers instead of by you.
Our 60-Second interactive videos usually have a way of going a little over a minute, but the idea behind them is to provide needs-based learning opportunities in audio/visual format. We wanted short bursts so that the message we were delivering in each episode didn't get lost in interpretations of the material that included ancillary elements. Below is a presentation on how to get free web hosting created in two formats.
The first format uses Microsoft Producer and is saved as a zip file to alleviate a problem we had with our institution's server on which the Producer videos were posted -- the server, and this is unique, we found, to Webster, won't preserve the synchronization of Producer files when directly broadcast. Another problem we found with Producer is that it works differently on different platforms. For example, Windows 2000 doesn't really display the effects embedded within the PowerPoint used to create the slideshow. We've also experienced problems getting the presentations to play on Macs though some of our students have indicated a certain success in doing that.
The second format uses MacroMedia's RoboDemo 5, which converts the slideshow into a Flash movie. This one plays immediately and doesn't require the download of a zip file. The one problem we noticed with RoboDemo 5 is that if it's streaming live off a website, then sometimes the slideshow falls out of sync with the audio if the end-user's connection speed is too slow. Take a moment to look at both, then click the continue link below.
Microsoft Producer Presentation on how to get Free Web Hosting
Macromedia RoboDemo 5 Presentation on how to get Free Web Hosting