As a University lecturer, I use powerpoint quite a bit, and often just using the Windows computers in our lecture theatres.
Well, today I needed to do something a little unique. I was demonstrating how to set up an SPSS data file (statistics software) using a questionnaire that we, as a class, had just administered in a small town to the local residents. We had all the questionnaires back, and I wanted to demonstrate how to set up the actual data file template, ready to receive all the data from the completed questionnaires. It's fiddly stuff. It means students watching what I am doing live on the big screen as I painstakingly (but importantly) go through the questionnaire and affiliated variables in SPSS. It can take a while, but it's critical to get everything right.
Right, so what I wanted to do, then, was record a video my screen as I gave the lecture, so I would effectively be creating a .wmv file for students to download and re-watch in case they missed something as I was giving the lecture. Well, we own Camtasia Studio (not the most recent version, but one that worked great on my old IBM Thinkpad when I used to use it) and I already had SPSS on my Windows virtual machine on my Macbook, so I decided to give everything a go, live in a lecture situation. Nerves of steel. This could have been a disaster, and it was, as I indicate above, an important lecture.
So, I get set up in the lecture, and many students' eyes lit up as they saw my Macbook screen (projected onto the large screen in a lecture theatre) suddenly start to launch Windows. "What the hell..." I heard one of them say. Was actually kind of funny. Then, I proceeded to start recording the screen with Camtasia and gave the 50 min lecture on setting up SPSS data files. I was flicking back and forth between SPSS and a .pdf of the questionnaire to show how everything fit together. When I was done, I had a movie file rendered and put up on the School server within 30 min. It was slick, nothing stuttered, nothing crashed, and nothing looked out of place. My students already think I'm a huge geek, and this only reinforced it. Trouble is, little do they know but this is the future of computing. I think.
Anyway, that's why I love Parallels.
Well, today I needed to do something a little unique. I was demonstrating how to set up an SPSS data file (statistics software) using a questionnaire that we, as a class, had just administered in a small town to the local residents. We had all the questionnaires back, and I wanted to demonstrate how to set up the actual data file template, ready to receive all the data from the completed questionnaires. It's fiddly stuff. It means students watching what I am doing live on the big screen as I painstakingly (but importantly) go through the questionnaire and affiliated variables in SPSS. It can take a while, but it's critical to get everything right.
Right, so what I wanted to do, then, was record a video my screen as I gave the lecture, so I would effectively be creating a .wmv file for students to download and re-watch in case they missed something as I was giving the lecture. Well, we own Camtasia Studio (not the most recent version, but one that worked great on my old IBM Thinkpad when I used to use it) and I already had SPSS on my Windows virtual machine on my Macbook, so I decided to give everything a go, live in a lecture situation. Nerves of steel. This could have been a disaster, and it was, as I indicate above, an important lecture.
So, I get set up in the lecture, and many students' eyes lit up as they saw my Macbook screen (projected onto the large screen in a lecture theatre) suddenly start to launch Windows. "What the hell..." I heard one of them say. Was actually kind of funny. Then, I proceeded to start recording the screen with Camtasia and gave the 50 min lecture on setting up SPSS data files. I was flicking back and forth between SPSS and a .pdf of the questionnaire to show how everything fit together. When I was done, I had a movie file rendered and put up on the School server within 30 min. It was slick, nothing stuttered, nothing crashed, and nothing looked out of place. My students already think I'm a huge geek, and this only reinforced it. Trouble is, little do they know but this is the future of computing. I think.
Anyway, that's why I love Parallels.
