There have been questions about Faculty narrating PowerPoint presentations and students not being able to view or hear the audio. Maybe they are on Google Drive; Maybe they are Google Slides; Maybe you don’t know what they are! Have no fear – let’s look at some of these FAQs to help solve these issues 🙂
Q: I uploaded a narrated Microsoft PowerPoint into Google Drive but my students can not view the powerpoint show or hear the audio. What do they need to do?
A: Students can download the narrated Microsoft PowerPoint onto their own machine to play, but they will need Microsoft PowerPoint in order to view it. Good news! We offer Microsoft office for free to ALL students at Gustavus. Navigate to office.gac.edu to download it for free!
Q: What is the BEST way to share a narrated presentation?
A: Using Microsoft PowerPoint? Let’s break it down into 4 main steps:
- Narrate your Microsoft PowerPoint Presentation
- Narrate Open your Microsoft Powerpoint Presentation
- Narrate your slides (talk to yourself like you are talking to your audience).
This video will show you how: https://youtu.be/wnL7NFLJKGU - OR if you prefer – add audio to each slide. This video will show you how: https://youtu.be/eUpjeeIAKCU
- Save your PowerPoint as a Movie
- In Powerpoint, when all your narrations are completed, click the File menu
- Select Export
- Under File Format, select MP4
- Give this file and name and choose a save location (desktop is ideal)
- Select Export
- Upload that movie to Google Drive or to YouTube (note: captions only required for students with accommodations)
- Upload the video to a folder in your Gustavus Google Drive. This video will show you how to upload to Google Drive: https://youtu.be/xIJ-lFj0mlk
- Open YouTube and login with your Gustavus credentials. Click the video camera in the upper right and select Upload Video. Follow the prompts on the screen. This video will show you how to upload to YouTube: https://youtu.be/rSAt8abB1WQ
- Share that link with your audience
- Google Drive: Open the video, click the 3 circles (upper right) and select share. Click Get Shareable Link, click Copy, and share that in Moodle, via email, etc.
- YouTube: Open the video, click share, select your share option and share in Moodle, email. Etc.
Q: I am using Google Slides – can I narrate those slides?
A: Yes and no. You can add audio to each google slide but you can not record those slides inside of Google slides. You need to record the audio in a tool like garage band or any kind of voice recorder app – basically any tool that gives you an MP3 or WAV file. You then have to insert those sound recordings to each slide in google slides. That may sound like a lot of work! It may be, but you could also download those google slides as MS Powerpoint slides and narrate them or you could screencast your google slides using a tool like Screencastify or Snagit for free! For more information on screencasting, navigate to https://gustavus.edu/gts/instructionalservices/ScreencastTools.php.