Presentation and Graphics Software Tools for ICT Teachers

Presentation and Graphics Software Tools for ICT Teachers 

Presentation software in teaching

Presentation software

– A speech or a talk on an informative topic can be made more effective by supplementing with pictures or sounds.

– Some software helps you to combine all these into a single presentation which can be projected on a screen for a big audience. These are called presentation software.

Presentation software makes our presentation interesting and effective.

Important Presentation softwares

– Microsoft Power Point

– OpenOffice Impress

How will you create a presentation using Microsoft PowerPoint/open office impress?

• Select the topic /content.

• Analyze the topic/ content into meaningful order.

• Sequence the points for each slide.

• Select the required photographs, drawings, etc.

• Select the design template or lay out from the computer.

• Create the required number of slides.

• Give animation to the text and slides.

• Save the file.

• Conduct slide presentation.

Creating Slides in Microsoft Power Point

• Options to create a slide are;

– 1. Blank Presentation.

– 2. From Design Template.

– 3. From Existing Presentation.

OpenOffice Impress

• OpenOffice Impress, developed by Sun Microsystems is an open source presentation program similar to Microsoft PowerPoint.

• Impress is a truly outstanding tool for creating effective multimedia presentations.

• It is able to view, edit and save files in several file formats, including the .ppt format, which is used by Microsoft PowerPoint.

Computer graphics

Graphics means visual manipulation of image. Computer graphics are graphics created using computers and, more generally, the representation and manipulation of image data by a computer with help from specialized software and hardware.

Typically, the term computer graphics refers to several different things:

The representation and manipulation of image data by a computer

The various technologies used to create and manipulate images

The sub-field of computer science which studies methods for digitally synthesizing and manipulating visual content.

Developments in computer graphics have had a profound impact on many types of media and have revolutionized animation, movies and the video game industry.

Computer generated imagery can be categorized into several different types: 2D, 3D, and animated graphics.

As technology has improved, 3D computer graphics have become more common, but 2D computer graphics are still widely used.

Computer graphics may be used in the following areas:

• Education
• Computational biology
• Computational physics
• Computer-aided design
• Computer simulation
• Digital art
• Graphic design
• Information visualization
• Scientific visualization
• Video Games
• Virtual reality
• Web design

Computer graphics software

• GIMP
• Corel Draw
• Photoshop

GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program)

GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) is an image retouching and editing tool and free and open-source software. There are versions tailored for most operating systems including Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.

GIMP has tools used for image retouching and editing, free-form drawing, resizing, cropping, converting between different image formats, and more specialized tasks. Animated images such as GIF and MPEG files can be created using an animation plugin.

The developers and maintainers of GIMP strive to be a high-end free software graphics application for the editing and creation of original images, photos, icons, graphical elements of web pages and art for user interface elements.

Teachers can make use of the Gimp in three main areas: (Educational Use of GIMP)

1) A free and relatively easy to use tool to edit images that you may use when building presentations, handouts, worksheets, tests, web content, or any other digital or print media. Since it runs on all platforms and is free, you can use it at home as well as at school.

2) A free tool that will work on any platform (windows, Mac OS, Linux) including older machines that you can use to teach students concepts of digital photography, image editing, or as a tool for students to edit images used in their own reports and presentations.

3) A tool for scientific analysis of digital images taken for scientific purposes. It is possible to strip out certain color bands, adjust brightness and contrast, take measurements, and form conclusions based upon image data.

AUDACITY (audio editor)

· Audacity is a free digital audio editor and recording application, available for Windows, Mac OS X, Linux and other operating systems. The free and open nature of Audacity has allowed it to become very popular in education, encouraging its developers to make the user interface easier for students and teachers

Audacity's features include the following:

· Importing and exporting of WAV, AIFF, MP3

· Recording and playing back sounds

· Editing via Cut, Copy and Paste (with unlimited levels of Undo)

· Multitrack mixing.

· A large array of digital effects and plug-ins

· Precise adjustments to the audio's speed while maintaining pitch (Audacity calls it changing tempo), in order to synchronize it with video or run for a predetermined length of time

· Changes to the audio's pitch without changing the speed

· Conversion of cassette tapes or records into digital tracks by automatically splitting the audio source into multiple tracks based on silences in the source material

· Support for multiple platforms — Audacity works on Windows, Mac OS X, and Unix-like systems

· The latest stable version supports Windows 98/ME/2000/XP/Vista/7, but Windows 95 and NT are not supported.

Kdenlive (KDE Non-Linear Video Editor)

· Kdenlive is a powerful multi-track video editor, including most recent video technologies.

· Software is completely free, as defined by the GNU foundation.

· Kdenlive is an acronym for KDE Non-Linear Video Editor. KDE stands for K-Desktop Environment

· Can include audio and video effects to video production. Video & Audio can be organised in layers.

· Audio effects include normalization, phase and pitch shifting, limiting, volume adjustment, reverb and equalization filters amongst others.

· Video effects include options for masking, blue-screen, distortions, rotations, colour tools, blurring, obscuring and others.

· Export to standard formats like Mpeg2, PAL & NTSC

· Can add pecial effects & transition to videos.

Animation

· Animation is the process of creating the impression of a motion picture by continuous and speedy exhibition of two or three dimensional pictures using special animation software.

· Animation – Two types:

o 2D Animation

o 3D Animation

Animation Softwares

· 2D Animation Software

o Tupi

o KToon

o Synfig Studio

o Pencil

· 3D Animation Software

o 3d Max Studio

o Maya

o Blender

Storyboards

Storyboards are graphic organizers in the form of illustrations or images displayed in sequence for the purpose of pre-visualizing a motion picture, animation, motion graphic or interactive media sequence. 

What is a storyboard?

The term “storyboard” is taken from movie production where it indicates a visual representation of the various scenes of a film. In e-learning, the storyboard describes screen by screen what will happen in the final e-lesson. The storyboard is not a final product. It is an intermediate product which is then used by Web developers to create the final interactive e-lesson.

Tupi 2D Magic

· Tupi is a design and authoring tool for digital artists interested in 2D Animation, offering an interface experience focused on 8-100 years old kids.

Tupi - Features

· Modular and friendly interface

· Preview animation module

· Basic tools for vectorial illustration.

· Time line and Exposure sheet.

· Animation export option for many video formats (OGV, AVI, MPEG, SWF, PNG).

e-content

· e-content (Electronic-content) is Digital content that can be transmitted over a computer network such as the Internet.

· The e-content could be in the following type:

o Short course / unit / module

o Full courseware