Using ICT in Education: Not forgetting enhanced and video podcasts

Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Not forgetting enhanced and video podcasts

For graphics preparation (resizing, cropping and adding effects), Paint.NET does the job. If you are using Vista then the new Paint program enables cropping and resizing. Another useful program is Microsoft Office Picture Manager. However, this one is only free if you are using Microsoft Office 2003. Only discovered it after we changed over to OpenOffice!! The Draw program in OpenOffice is not really suitable for accurate resizing and cropping (but it has some easily applied filters and effects).

The enhanced podcast can be created using Microsoft Photo Story 3, which allows for easy addition of photos and sound. The resulting file can be converted to the required format using the Jodix iPod video converter.

Video podcasts can easily be created using Windows Movie Maker (comes with Windows XP and later). Again the resulting file can be easily converted using the Jodix iPod video converter.

Other encoders include Virtual Dub and Windows Media Encoder. Help and tutorials can be found on the Internet! This one shows how to compress a video using Virtual Dub.