Converting Narrated PowerPoints to Flash with iSpring - ALC eLearning Resources

ALC New Technology Blog » Converting Narrated PowerPoints to Flash with iSpring

Back to New Tech Blog Written on 23-Jan-2009 by rbowery

Are you looking for a way to put PowerPoint slideshows on your webpages or eCourseware (D2L) content pages? Check out a free add-on to PowerPoint called iSpring that allows you to convert a PowerPoint to Flash. It is not a Microsoft product but is fully integrated with PowerPoint as an add-on and appears to be a reliable product used by many corporations such as IBM and Boeing.

iSpring will include any narrations, transitions, or animations that were created in PowerPoint. (PowerPoint 2007 greatly improved their animation feature for better learning dynamics.) The end product is a standalone Flash movie on your computer that is much smaller in file size than the original ppt file. Such file can then be uploaded to eCourseware or UMdrive and linked accordingly. You may download iSpring truly for free, not just a trial. See my embedded guide below for using iSpring.

Sample PowerPoint Flash Video (converted with iSpring and uploaded to Slideboom)

Here’s what you can do to try it:

Download the free iSpring Converter software.
Open PowerPoint, create your slideshow and add any transitions, animations or narration desired using PowerPoint’s native features.
Click the new iSpring Converter menu within PowerPoint and publish as Flash.

iSpring also gives you the option of publishing your Flash video to their free Slideboom web streaming service, where they will host your converted Flash movie and allow you to embed it on any other webpage, such as on UMdrive or an eCourseware content page. Embedding allows the Flash movie to play right on your course page in context. I have a free account with Slideboom and have uploaded directly from PowerPoint several iSpring Flash movies that play and sound very nice, even in full screen view. Slideboom will give you the link and embed codes for each video.

UofM faculty may want to consider regularly using iSpring-Slideboom as a solution for creating narrated or animated slideshows for web use. Then you can embed your multimedia shows directly in eCourseware.

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Tags: animation,flash,powerpoint,convert,conversion,ispring,slideboom,narration

Comments

written on 15-May-2009

Jaison [http://www.digitalofficepro.com] says:

Try PowerFlashPoint converter from DigitalOfficePro.
written on 15-May-2009

techboy says:

thanks jaison. I tried PowerFlashPoint, great tool for powerpoint to flash conversion.
written on 23-Jun-2009

rbowery says:

Alternative to Flash Conversions:
If you need to publish your narrated PowerPoints in a format other than Flash, you could use a nifty web service ScreenToaster (http://www.screentoaster.com). When I published the above iSpring article, I was aware of ScreenToaster but had issues with it, so I didn't mention it. However, several months ago the issues were resolved.

With ScreenToaster, you can actually record anything on your screen, PowerPoints, webpages, etc., and narrate as you record. So it's like a web-based simple version of Camtasia. ScreenToaster will then give you the options of publishing your video on their server as Flash, or YouTube, or downloading to your computer as a QuickTime file. The QT option allows you, if necessary, to edit the files on your computer (with a video editor like Corel VideoStudio), and publish to a non-Flash media server (as we have on our local campus) or to iTunes.

The main disadvantage to ScreenToaster is that you can't edit out recorded content unless you download and locally edit.

Roy Bowery, University of Memphis
written on 01-Feb-2010

house share [http://www.u-rooms.com] says:

Your given advice is great and very helpful. Thanks for sharing with us... student accommodation

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