In order to embed the video you have created into a Power Point presentation, you first need to convert it to a .wmv file. All movies need to be in that format to play well with Power Point.

I have created a video tutorial to show how to do that with a program I talked about earlier, VideoLAN.
Assuming you have downloaded that program, click the tutorial link below, there is also a .pdf file of the steps needed to convert a file using VideoLAN.

Converting Flash Video Tutorial

Converting Flash Video .pdf

When that step is complete, you can simply go to the page in Power Point you want to embed the video and follow these steps.1. Select “Insert” then “Movies and Sounds” then “Movie From File”
2. Browse to the file you want to embed and select “OK”
3. It will ask if you want it to play automatically or when clicked, I suggest “When Clicked”.
4. Test your slide to make sure everything works!

Let’s say you have a .mov file and you want to embed it into a Power Point Presentation it needs to be in .wmv format, so what do you do?  Perhaps you have a file in iPod (m4a) format and want to play it on a regular mp3 player, then what?   There are many ways to convert files from one file type to another, but I discovered a new one at MACUL this year I really think fits to bill. It’s an online website, so you no longer have to download a program onto your computer.  The site is found at www.zamzar.com.  Basically, you browse to the file you want to convert, select the format you want it converted to, enter an e-mail for the link to be sent to (You may want to use a free e-mail account for this part to avoid spam), then download your final product.

This site is so easy to use, I won’t do any explination here, just check it out and you will be pleased with your results!

The most attractive web sites are not necessarily the best web sites. Take “Internet4Classrooms.com” for example. This site has a multitude of links within several categories. The layout is very simple – the name of the link and a brief description. The brief description helps you know immediately if it is what you are looking for.

There are five major categories of interest to K12 teachers:

Links for k12 Teachers – this section includes the topics such as language arts, math, science, social studies, art and music, health and PE and foreign language. Within each category, you will find additional breakdowns by grade level (although keep in mind that these grade levels were intended for Tennessee teachers). Note that it only includes K-8.

Assessment Assistance – This section provides assessment tools to help students practice various skills. It has resources for elementary, middle and high school students.

Online Practice Modules – This section provides links geared to learning various software applications such as PowerPoint, Inspiration, Excel and even how to create WebQuests.

Daily Dose of the Web – A great resource for those little “attention getters” at the beginning of class. For example, in the area of language arts, you can find links for daily grammar, word of the day, and daily spelling words.

Searching – locate over 40 search engines, including those specifically geared toward younger children. You can also review some basic tips for effective searching on the Internet.

One cool component not often found on web site collections is a guide that indicates the type of file associated with a link. For example, as seen in the table below, if the link points to a PowerPoint presentation, you will see the PowerPoint icon following the link description (click on the picture to see a better view)

This is definitely a site you will want to check out.

If you publish a blog for your classroom, you may want to create a page that provides guidelines on appropriate comments for your blog posts. Feel free to use this Blog Comment Etiquette with your classroom blog.

One of the challenges we face as we upload documents to our blogs or send them as attachments to an email is that the person trying to open those documents might not have the application to open them. You also might want to convert the document so that it cannot be changed after it’s downloaded.

One solution is to convert your document as a pdf (Adobe Portable Document Format) file before uploading or attaching it. Anyone can open a pdf document with Adobe Reader, available free on the web (http://www.adobe.com). There is also a free tool available on the web to convert your documents to pdf format before uploading or attaching them called PrimoPDF (http://www.primopdf.com). This tool will allow you to create PDFs from any printable document.