We have been receiving a lot of questions about how to create a voiceover for PowerPoint. The faculty asking want to be able to add these final products to Blackboard. I am going to take this tutorial to the next level by showing you how to do a PowerPoint voiceover, convert it to an MP4 video, upload it to YouTube, and embed it in your Blackboard Course. Hang on, it’s going to be an exciting ride.
Creating a PowerPoint Voiceover
The first place to start is by creating a voiceover. To do this, you will need PowerPoint and a microphone. Here are the steps:
- With your PowerPoint presentation loaded, click on the Slide Show tab on the top menu.
- Select the Record Slide Show dropdown and select Start Recording from beginning…
- Leaving both boxes checked, click on the Start Recording button.
- The slide show will begin. Start your narration while advancing through each slide. When you are ready to stop, press the ESC key on your keyboard.
- You can now test your presentation by pressing the F5 key on your keyboard. This will start the presentation.
Congratulations, you have created a voiceover for your PowerPoint. Now you have to do something with it. You could save it as a self-running presentation or convert it into a video.
Saving Your PowerPoint Voiceover as an MP4 Video
Here the steps for saving your voiceover as a video or self-running presentation:
- Click on the File menu item at the top of your PowerPoint screen.
- Click on the Save As link for the left-hand menu.
- Decide where you want to save the file. I will be saving mine on my desktop.
- Decide upon a file name and change to the file type to PowerPoint Show for a self-running presentation or MPEG-4 Video for an MP4 video.
NOTE: It will take time to create your file. There is a status bar at the bottom of the PowerPoint program showing the progress.
Uploading Your Video to YouTube
The next step in the process is to upload the video to YouTube. Here are the steps for that process:
- I recommend logging into your SUNYJCC.EDU account. You can do that by going to MyJCC and selecting the Google account/email.
- Log in with your JCC credentials.
- Select the applications menu in the upper right corner and scroll down to select YouTube.
- Click on the Video camera button in the upper right corner and select Upload video.
- Click on the Select File button and locate your video.
- Add a title, description, and playlist.
- Check “No, it’s not made for kids.”
- Click on the Next button.
- Click the Next button again.
- Decide on visibility. I recommend selecting Public or Unlisted.
- Click on the Save button.
Congratulations, you have uploaded your video to YouTube. At this time you can grab the embed code for Blackboard or you can copy the link to distribute as you see fit.
Embedding Your Video in Blackboard
One of the last steps is to embed your video into your class. I will be using my sandbox to demonstrate this.
- I recommend logging into your SUNYJCC.EDU account. You can do that by going to MyJCC and selecting the Google account/email.
- Log in with your JCC credentials.
- Select the applications menu in the upper right corner and scroll down to select YouTube.
- Click on your account in the upper right corner of the YouTube window.
- Click on the YouTube Studio.
- Click on Videos from the left-hand menu.
- Mouse over your video and select the show on Youtube button.
- Click on the Share link below your video.
- Click on the Embed button.
- Click on the Copy button.
- Log into Blackboard and navigate to your course.
- Navigate to where you want to embed the video.
- Click on the Build Content tab and select either Item or Blank Page. In this case, I will use Item.
- Add Name.
- Select the HTML tool for the text window.
- Paste your code in the window that appears for the HTML code then click the Update button.
- Add other content or adjust other settings as appropriate.
- Click the Submit button.
Congratulations! You have now posted a video to your Blackboard course shell.