Audio & Video Tools for Educators

Robin Good: For Windows PC users ActivePresenter may prove to be an interesting alternative, with lots of useful features at a price that can't be beaten.

And when you want more options, like extra export formats, or the ability to produce PowerPoint presentation as final output, the Standard and Pro editions come to the rescue.

With ActivePresenter, not only you can record your computer screen along with your own audio narration, but you can also capture screenshots automatically with mouse clicks or key presses and 

automatically generate appropriate annotations for each action.

Even the free version has no watermarks or time limitations.

Other features include:

- Attractive callouts

- Annotations for explaining each action
- Changing mouse cursor path
- Remove/change unneeded parts
- Add more video overlays
- Sync audio, video and overlays
- Closed Captioning

- Make it interactive by adding application simulations, branching scenarios, and quizzes
- Easily publish to the web, desktops, mobile devices, and leading SCORM-compliant Learning Management Systems
- Track and report key metrics to evaluate learner performance

Supported output formats: AVI, MP4, WMV or WebM (supported by Youtube)

Three editions available:

- Free Edition: Can create video (AVI, MP4, WMV, WebM)
- Standard Edition: as Free + output in Flash Video (FLV), Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Adobe PDF and HTML output
- Pro Edition: as Standard + the capability to create interactive AJAX, Adobe Flash simulations and Microsoft PowerPoint presentations.

N.B.: The Free Edition has almost all the features as in the Standard or Professional Edition, except the export capability.

Demo recordings: http://atomisystems.com/demo/ ;

Compare different editions: http://atomisystems.com/activepresenter/features-comparison/ ;

More info: http://atomisystems.com/activepresenter/free-edition/ ;

Robin Good: Timeline is a Javascript open-source solution that allows anyone to create a visual timeline that integrates text, tweets, images, maps, audio recordings and video clips on an infinite scrollable bar. 

A project funded by the Knight News Innovation Lab, Timeline works great with stories that have a strong chronological narrative. It does not work well for stories that need to jump around in the timeline.

Mashable Sonia Paul writes about it: "Timeline is similar to Storify in that it allows users to aggregate media on the web, it differs in its operation.

With Storify, users can drag and drop content into a post.

With Timeline, users can either embed the code onto their website using JSON, or — if they don’t want to mess with any coding — they can fill in a ready-made Timeline template on Google Docs.

The project is currently hosted on GitHub, and users can find specific directions on how to both embed the code and use the Google Doc template there, too.

Future plans for the project include support of more media type, as well as iPhone compatibility, B.C. time support and better seconds and milliseconds support." 

Here is the GDoc ready-made template: https://docs.google.com/previewtemplate?id=0AppSVxABhnltdEhzQjQ4MlpOaldjTmZLclQxQWFTOUE&mode=public&ndplr=1&pli=1# 

Download: https://github.com/VeriteCo/Timeline/zipball/master ;

More info, including how to embed it on your site and what file formats are supported: http://timeline.verite.co/ ;

Robin Good: Synchtube allows you to create public and private rooms and share music, videos that you can watch synchronized with your other viewers.

"Turn your room into a automated TV station, 24/7 radio station, or a simple hangout."

Find out more:  http://www.synchtube.com/ 

Robin Good: Chill, the video sharing and discovery site, has just introduced a new feature that allows anyone to clip and share, on a Pinterest-like thematic board, all of the video clips he finds on the web.

The new Chill bookmarklet works very much like the Pinterest one. When you click it, a page shows you all of the video clips found in that page and offers you to clip and "post" the one you want, with your comments. 

It's as easy as that.

The generated "curated" Chill video boards are easy to scan and browse, though, in my view, a great boon would be the ability to check a few of those videos and to click a play button that plays them full screen back to back. This way I have the best of curated content, my own selection, and the final lay-back and watch gratification option. 

Very promising. 

Go try it out now: http://chill.com/bookmarklet 

Robin Good: OneLoad lets users upload a video once and have it syndicated throughout multiple platforms.

"OneLoad is a video distribution service for brand
advertisers and content creators who want to easily
seed their videos to the top video and social networking sites."

The service, which was originally part of the TubeMogul service, in now fully independent.

Key features include: 

Pricing info: http://www.oneload.com/solutions/features 

Find out more: http://www.oneload.com/ 

iPiccy is a very simple easy to use, feature rich online image editor. You can start using it without even registering. Very useful for simple cropping, adding effects or more complex edits.

Robin Good: Course Hero is a platform which allows the creation and delivery of online video courses curated from the best existing published content on that topic.

There are already ready-made courses to access or you can submit a topic that you would like to video-curate into a course.

"You can learn just about anything from YouTube...if you're willing to dig through millions of videos."

From Techcrunch: "Luckily, Course Hero has done the work for you, offering coherent classes by hosting collections of the best educational YouTube videos and other content.

The newly launched courses section of the eduTech startup’s site now has classes in entrepreneurship, business plan development, and programming in a variety of languages.

...

By drawing from YouTube and other openly available education, Course Hero plans to set up courses for anything it, or you, can think of.

...

Each course breaks down into roughly 6 chapters of 6 concept YouTube videos, Justin.tv videos, articles, and more. Unlike Udemy‘s one-teacher-per-class approach, Course Hero courses are compiled from content by many teachers.

Rather than put you at the mercy of long-winded professors, Course Hero trims videos and articles down to their most important teachings.

Along the way you’ll answer quiz questions, take tests to complete chapters, and face a final exam to finish a course and earn proficiency badges..."

Full article: http://techcrunch.com/2012/04/12/course-hero/ ;

Courses: http://www.coursehero.com/courses/ ;

More info: http://www.coursehero.com/ ;

PresentationTube provides a video presentation recorder and sharing network to help instructors, students, virtual presenters, and business professionals record, publish and share quality, accessible, and interactive video presentations from the...

Trascribe is a free online tool to help you with transcription of interviews or other audio files easily.