If you tried recording narration in PowerPoint and you got no sound, take a look at the following information about checking that the computer's settings are correct for recording. In Windows XP, you need to make sure that the computer's sound card is set to record through a microphone and that the volume level is high enough to get a good audio signal. Follow these steps to make sure the settings are correct.
 

1. Go to the Start menu and click on the Control Panel.

2. The Control Panel window should appear like the one below. Find the Sounds and Audio Devices and double-click on it.

3. The Sounds and Audio Devices Properties window will appear.

 

 4. Click on the Advanced tab.

5. This should open the Volume Control window. You should see a volume control that says Microphone. Make sure that the volume for the Microphone is up almost, but not quite to the top.


 

Creating a Non-Linear PowerPoint Present

Action Buttons in PowerPoint allow users to create interactive presentations and activities by jumping to different slides in a presentation, instead of simply going in a linear order.

To place action buttons in your PowerPoint presentation, you should be in Slide View.

1. Select Slide Show>Action Buttons from the menu bar at the top of the screen.



If you are going to be creating several buttons, you may want to "tear off" the Actions Buttons menu by clicking on the blue strip at the top and dragging it to a convenient place on your screen.

2. Select an action button.

• Ready-made action buttons include home, next slide, previous slide, first slide, last slide and last slide viewed.
   
• Button actions aren't limited to moving from slide to slide; they also can be used for playing a sound, stop playing a sound, moving to another slide, launching an application and opening a file, going to a web URL and playing another slideshow within the current slide.
   
• You can also assign a button any combination of these actions.

3. Once you have selected an action button, the pointer arrow will change to cross hairs (+). Using the cross hairs, draw a square or rectangle on the screen by dragging the shape using the mouse.

Something that looks like this should appear on the screen.



4. When you release the mouse, the Action Settings dialog box should appear.


 

The following PowerPoint tutorials are from Donna Smith, a faculty member in the UH IT Program.

• Setting a custom background
• Four types of custom animation
• Putting it together
• Getting animations to play without needing a click
• Making the presentation stop on the last slide
• How to make action buttons
• Capitalizing on the Interactive Features of PowerPoint to Support Student Learning

From Microsoft:

• Animations I: Preset and custom animation
• Animations II: Motion paths
• Animations III: Timing

Reading Assignment:

• Can PowerPoint be Saved? We Think So!
  http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/NCP07064A.pdf
   
  • Student Feedback
    http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/NCP07064C.pdf
     
• PowerPoint: Shot with its own bullets
  http://www.norvig.com/lancet.html
   
• PowerPoint Does Rocket Science: Assessing the Quality and Credibility of Technical Reports
  http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=0001yB&topic_id=1 
   
• Five Experts Dispute Edward Tufte on PowerPoint
  http://www.sociablemedia.com/articles_dispute.htm 
   
• 7 things you should know about...Virtual Meetings
  http://www.wimba.com/docs/EDUCAUSE_February_2006.pdf

Hands-On Assignment 4:

In this week's class, we examined several different features of PowerPoint as well as briefly explored some web-based presentation tools. For this assignment, create a slide presentation (using PowerPoint or any of the online presentation tools) that is related to your own professional or instructional use, or which you simply find interesting, that includes at least 5 different slides and includes at least 5 of the following items:

1. Word Art
2. Clip Art
3. Animated Clip Art
4. A Chart, Table or Graph
5. A New Background Added to at Least One Slide
6. A New PowerPoint Template Added to the Entire Presentation
7. At least One Action Button that Links to Another Slide in the Presentation
8. At least One Action Button that Links to a Web Page
9. Custom Animation
10. Motion Paths
11. A Feature Not Mentioned in the Above List

IMPORTANT NOTE: Also, please number your slides and include a slide at the end of your presentation with text that describes which items you selected for this assignment and indicate the slide number where each item you selected appears.

• When you have completed the assignment, use the online submission system at: http://eclassrooms.coe.uh.edu/assignments/ to submit the PowerPoint slides and also bring a copy with you the next face-to-face class on July 6. 

IMPORTANT NOTE about next week's class:

The Computer Lab in the Jones Library is not available during our normal class time next week (June 28), so we will have an online class session. We will discuss the details of this class meeting during Class Four.

For the online class meeting next week, we will use a feature of eClassroom called Online Virtual Meeting System. You can log into the system by clicking on the following link:

http://eclassrooms.coe.uh.edu/jerry/disc12.html