Using Explain Everything to Create a Narration PowerPoint Video

Although there are many iPad apps that allow you to create videos of your narrated and/or annotated PowerPoint presentations, none is easier than Explain Everything. One of the best features of Explain Everything is that it can connect to both Xythos

and your Blackboard Content Storage, enabling you to quickly pull up a PowerPoint (or set of images) that you’d saved in either space, and then export

your finished video back to the same server.

Upon launching Explain Everything, you’ll see a blank screen with a series of icons across the top. Tap the Plus Sign to choose a template and open a clean whiteboard space or, if you’ve already saved a file to work with, tap the icon with the Plus Sign over a Document.

Tapping the Plus Sign over a Document icon will bring up a screen that, at the bottom, allows you to select the type of connection you want to make (Dropbox, Google Drive, etc.). To connect to either Xythos or Blackboard Content, tap WebDAV in the lower right-hand corner.

Tap the image of the hard drive that appears, then - in the login box that appears - enter the appropriate information for the server you want to connect to:

Xythos: Server address: https://files.fairfield.edu Port: 8443 Username: <your NetID username> Password: <your NetID password>

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Blackboard: Server address: https://fairfield.blackboard.com/bbcswebdav/users/<your NetID username> Port: 443 Username: <your NetID username> Password: <your NetID password>

Once you fill in your settings and tap Login, you’ll be connected to the server until you disconnect and log on to a different server.

Once you’re connected and you see your folder, navigate through to the file you want and tap on it. The title slide will appear so you can verify it’s the correct file; if it is, tap Choose in the upper right of the screen.

Once your presentation is imported, you will be presented with your first slide, along with the Explain Everything tool bars along the left-hand side and the bottom of the screen.

The tools on the left are for annotating your presentation as you make your recording, and the tools on the bottom are for navigating through the presentation and controlling the recording of your video.

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From left to right, along the bottom row, the controls are:

1. Forward & backward arrows to move through your slides, with a drop-down list in between to jump directly to a particular slide

2. Recording controls, with the red dot in the middle acting as both the Start button and the Stop button; and the arrow controls allowing you to move back and forth within the particular slide recording you’ve made

3. The Editing control, which lets you move back and forth within the timeline of your slide recording, replace your recording with a new version, or replace only a portion of your recording with changes additions.

4. Save and Export tools to save either single slide images or complete videos of your work.

As you create your narrated presentation, you can also use the Plus Sign alongside the slide navigator to add a new blank whiteboard page at any time, as well as the annotation tools along the left to add text (1), drawings (2), and pointers (3 & 4) to accent the material you’re talking about. You can also add a new picture, file, sound, or video (5) as you are recording, or undo any action (6) you’ve taken.!

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12

3

45

6

To re-record a slide, tap the left side of Editing control to bring up a timeline of what you’ve recorded and annotated. Move to the beginning if you want to replace the entirety of what you’ve recorded on that slide, or to the particular spot that you want your re-recording to begin if you don’t want to replace everything. Once you have your starting point set, tap the arrow to the right of the time code and choose whether your new recording will replace the existing recording or be mixed with (i.e., inserted in) the the existing recording. Once you’ve made your choice, simply begin recording in the same way that you’d previously done.

When you’ve completed your video and watched & listened to each separate slide and are satisfied with the results, you’re ready to export the presentation as a video.

From the Save and Export tools along the bottom right-hand side of the screen, tap the second icon followed by the More button. A window will appear that allows you to choose the format and location for your file. Tap WebDAV along the bottom to select the Xythos or Blackboard connection you set up for saving (depending on how long it’s been since you last accessed there server, you may be aske, then tap Video file along the time to specify the format. Then simply navigate to the appropriate folder and tap the blue Export button.

Your presentation will then be compressed and converted to a video (which may take a few minutes, depending on how long it is), and you’ll finally receive an Upload success message to tell you that it’s done.

You can also save the original presentation in its editable format by tapping the third icon in the Save and Export area and following the same process as above to keep a copy as an .xpl file that you can open again in Explain Everything and contain to edit and re-work before making new videos from it.

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