The Online Degree Programs site has some great tips, tools and tricks for using Google’s much anticipated Wave service.

Increasingly many publishers are producing content designed for delivery through VLEs, this is usually presented in SCORM format and often contains a number of PowerPoint files with embedded flash content. Many of us would like to re-engineer this to meet our own needs. The following routine outlines how to disaggregate some of this content content into its component assets, namely extracting embedded Flash content from a PowerPoint.

Part 1

1. Download the extractaflash.exe file from here
2. Place this extracted file into C:\

Part 2

1. Open Powerpoint File
2. Make sure the Active X control is enabled
3. Go to the slide with the embedded Flash File
4. ‘Select’ it with your mouse and drag it to the desktop – this creates a Scrap file….which is really called Scrap.shs
5. Now move the Scrap file to C:\

Part 3

1. Go to Start–>Run and type cmd
2. On the Command line type cd\ [enter]
3. Now type exactly ….. C:\extractaflash.exe c:\Scrap.shs c:\output.swf
4. Your flash file is now called output.swf in c:\ that can be renamed to whatever you want to call it —remember the .swf extension!!

Like all PowerPoint users, there are times when I’d like to make my slides a little more interesting and interactive, this usually involves Flash. But how do you embed Flash content easily and quickly into PowerPoint. Swiff Point Player is a Free Microsoft PowerPoint Add In that enables you to easily insert and play their Flash movies in their Microsoft PowerPoint presentations.

As we are all no doubt aware Youtube is generally blocked in schools, unfortunately this blocking stops a lot of excellent video resources being used.  One solution is to use edublogs.tv.

To use edublogs.tv:

1. Register on the site, copy the URL of the clip you wish to view, return to Edublogs.tv

2. Select upload/ manage my videos now, click on ‘Grab YouTube Video’

3. Paste in the YouTube Video URL and the security image, the video information appears, click ‘Get Video Now’, close the window,

4. Select my videos, Wait… and select the appropriate video, You can now watch your video or embed it elsewhere.

Spotted the following article on the Microsoft School’s Blog - its a follow on article from last weeks article 10 ways to work more securely.

Tips for working securely from wireless hotspots

I recently received a request for how do to this, so I’ve written a short tutorial on it.

Most flash content can be extracted from web pages using your browser without the need for additional software. The following tutorial outlines how to do this using IE 7:

Step 1

Empty your browser’s cache of temporary internet files.

Go to ‘Tools’ ‘Internet Options’ under the ‘General’ tab click on the ‘Delete’ button under ‘Browsing History’

The ‘Delete Browsing History’ window will appear – click the ‘Delete’ button next to ‘Temporary internet Files’

A warning will appear asking if you ‘are sure you want to delete all temporary internet files’ 

Click ‘OK’

Step 2

Open the page containing the flash content you would like to extract in your browser.

Step 3

Go to ‘Tools’ ‘Internet Options’ under the ‘General’ tab click on the ‘Settings’ button under ‘Browsing History’

The ‘Temporary Internet Files and History Settings’ window will appear.

Click on the ‘View Files’ button – this will display all your browser’s temporary internet files.

The temporary internet files folder will open – click ‘View’  and select ‘Details’

 Locate the flash file – this will be listed with ‘Flash Movie’ in the ‘type’ column.

Step 4

Copy and paste out the flash movie to store it elsewhere on your computer.

 Free Software for Extracting Flash from Web Pages

 The above tutorial will work where it is not possible to install software onto perhaps a networked work station you’re working on. Although this works, it is rather convoluted; an easier method is to install one of the many free flash extractor applications available. The list below illustrates some of the more popular:

Movie Scout Extractor – IE

SWF Catcher – IE / Firefox

If you’re a MovieMaker user then this is for you. Most of the students at my school are quite proficient in using MovieMaker and use it very effectively across most curriculum subjects. However, many of them would like to be able to do some Blue Screen Video (Chroma Key) work, superimposing themselves onto other video backgrounds. Previously this hasn’t been possible in MovieMaker.

Apologies for the rather techie post!

If you have MAC Filtering setup on your router and would like to use your Asus EeePC with it, then you’ll need the EeePC’s MAC address. This can be tricky if like me you’re not really that familiar with Linux!

You’ll need to access the terminal command:

Step 1

Start up your EeePC

‘Ctrl’  ’Alt’ and ‘T’ to open the Terminal

Step 2

In the Terminal window type the command ‘sudo ifconfig’

Next to ‘eth0′, you should see ‘Hwaddr’ - the string next to it is your MAC address.

I’m currently working on a video project about Anne Frank – students work collaboratively to produce a DVD about the Life of Anne Frank. The students have been provided with a selection of clips ripped from a DVD (copyright permission has been agreed) and stills from the DVD. Students ‘reconstruct’ the DVD from the component clips, adding their own narration and clips they’ve filmed.

I’ve created a guide for teachers and students on using the relevant technology to complete the project, the guide needed to illustrate several scenes from the DVD. But just how do you capture scenes from a DVD ideally for FREE? MovieMaker can only take stills from specific video formats and not DVD. There are several DVD player applications that will (PowerDVD etc), although we don’t have any of them at school on student PCs or on teacher laptops. Well it is possible – VLC Player a free media player supports a large number of multimedia formats, without the need for additional codecs and most importantly has a snapshot function.

How then do you take a snapshot from a DVD with VLC Player?

Step 1

Download and install VLC Player

Step 2

Insert DVD into your computer’s DVD drive – If you’re running Windows XP you’ll be asked what you would like to do.

Select Play back with VLC

Step 3

The DVD will now playback in VLC Player

Select the scene you wish to capture a still from.

Select Tools > Capture

Step 4

The scene will be captured as a Jpeg and by default is saved to My Documents / My Pictures

The still image (JPEG) captured from the DVD. This can now be added to storyboards, worksheets and guides.

VLC Player is available as a free download from:

http://www.videolan.org/

Mac Users

If you’re using a Mac and would like to capture still images from a DVD – DVD Capture 2.5 is a free ‘helper’ application for the Apple DVD Player. It enables the user to take screen captures of the DVD Player Viewer in window and full screen mode. The captures can be saved to a file or placed on the clipboard.

DVD Capture can be downloaded from:

http://mac.softpedia.com/get/Video/DVD-Capture.shtml