Convert PowerPoint Presentations to Movie Maker Movies

I've found that many teachers use PowerPoint. If PowerPoint is used creatively, it can be an effective classroom tool. This can be done in a few steps. First of all, you (or your students) should create your own dimmed backgrounds. Second, add your own digital voice files. This will make your PowerPoint presentations unique, personal and effective. But that is not what this blog is about. I want to show you how to take the PowerPoint’s you have and turn them into Movie Maker movies that can be played in Windows Media Player. First of all, let it be known that Movie Maker is a very easy program to use. Check it out; I think you will agree with me. So here we go. Step 1, choose "save as" in your PowerPoint file to save all your slides as jpegs. This will save them in a folder with the same name as your original PowerPoint file. Next, open Movie Maker and import the jpeg images. Then just drag the jpegs (slides) in the correct order to add them to the storyboard. If you want to add transitions, click view transitions under edit movie and drag the transition of your choice to the transition block between the slides. Now switch to the timeline view. Click on a jpeg (slide) then put your mouse on the right edge. The arrow will turn into a red horizontal left/right arrow. Drag to the right to increase the amount of time the image is shown in the movie. You can see the length of time the slide will be displayed. The next step is to import your audio. This can be music or your (or your students) voice that you recorded and edited in Audacity. Right click on it and choose add to timeline. Now choose "save project" from the file menu. This saves the file so that you can open or edit it later on. Next choose "save movie file" from the file menu. Leave the default "save your movie for playback on your computer". Again, leave the default "best quality". Now you can play the movie in Windows Media Player.