My Online Seminar & Prezi

In this post, I would like to reflect on the creation of my Online Seminar/ Webinar.

As an assignment in our Digital Literacy course, we were asked to select a topic about an emerging technology tool or concept in order to present to our virtual classmates via Adobe Connect.

My topic is titled Audacity: Tips for Educators

Originally, I completed my presentation in PowerPoint. Thanks to our instructor, Leslie, she encoraged me to try using a different presentation platform such Pecha Kucha, Slideshare, or Prezi.

I choose to convert my presentation into Prezi. See Below.

Having never used Prezi before, I watched numerous tutorials and existing Prezis to get a better idea of how to use it. (Like me, you will be very impressed by some of them!)

Prezi uses a 'zooming' feature which allows its users to zoom in really close to information. Being able to zoom makes presentations come alive and less linear in style, like MS Powerpoint.

NB. Try not to make your audience dizzy though :)

RECOMMENDATIONS:

• Select a theme, metaphor, or image for Prezi. For example, if your topic is about human anatomy, select an image/template of the human body to use as the backdrop of your Prezi.
• Make your information flow from one part of the image to another in a storyline fashion. So if you want to discuss the heart first, don't start your first slide at the head. 

Adding Audio to Prezi

So, it turned out that I needed to add audio to my Prezi because I was having trouble uploading the flv file.

For the online seminar, we presented and recorded our presentations with AdobeConnect. Even though our instructor saved our webinars in flv, I could not upload my video to Blogger and YouTube! So, I took my own advice on Audacity: Tips for Educators, and I rerecorded my presentation using Audacity!

In Prezi, I had to ADD VOICE OVER TO PATH STEP. 

Basically, each presentation slide had to have it's own audio clip...and I have 21 slides. Yikes! 

As a result, I thought I would provide some more tips to educators out there about editing and exporting the audio files in Audacity.

RECOMMENDATIONS: Editing and Exporting

1. Click on VIEW tab and scroll down to SHOW CLIPPING so you can see the clip section you want to save.
2. Use the SELECTION START AND END located at the bottom of your audio file in Audacity.
3. You may also want to ZOOM TO SELECTION, which made it easier for cutting out unwanted audio.
4. Click on FILE, and scroll to SAVE PROJECT AS and then title your Audacity audio clip.
5. Return to FILE, and scroll to EXPORT SELECTION, and then you will be able to convert your audio file to MP3.
6. If you don't have a MP3 converter on your computer, which I didn't, Audacity provides a link, http://lame1.buanzo.com.ar/#lamewindl. 

However, you should be careful that you click on the right download as it can be very confusing with all the ads!! Screenshot below...

Screenshot of Lame Download Page--Click on Lame_v3.99.3_for_Windows.exe

Now you should be on your way to adding audio to your Prezi-tation!

My last words of advice are that you need to be patience when working with audio editing software. It can become very tedious work and sometimes it is best to use trial and error. 

Don't be afraid to experiment and explore!

Personally, I am still learning how to edit audio files more efficiently and I will continue to use Prezi for other presentations in my personal and work lives, and of course for continuous learning!