U N I V E R S I T Y  O F  P I T T S B U R G H

Volume VIII, Number 3.

Capturing Your Classroom Presentations
by Nick Laudato
CIDDE Associate Director, Instructional Technology

Have you ever wanted to capture your classroom presentation to later share with your students, help absent students, or reach distance education students? The University now supports Tegrity, a hardware/software service that can record video, audio, and graphics, along with synchronized ad hoc written or hand-drawn annotations.

Photo by Cindy Lu, CIDDE
Example of Tefgrity Recording Process	..

Tegrity is a hardware/software service that can capture your in-class presentations for later storage and playback. Tegrity sessions are typically held in the classroom with the assistance of a CIDDE Instructional Media Services operator. The instructor’s presentation is built around a Microsoft PowerPoint show that has been prepared in advance of the class session. The CIDDE operator sets up the Tegrity cart, initiates the recording session, and operates the video camera. The instructor can control and preview the PowerPoint presentation using a touch-sensitive LCD panel.

The Tegrity software records the instructor’s voice (via a wireless microphone), video image, PowerPoint slides, and any annotations the instructor makes on the LCD panel via the attached electrostatic stylus. After the recording has been made, the instructor and CIDDE support staff can make simple edits, such as removing slides or adding text for closed captioning.

The illustration at the bottom shows the format of the Tegrity playback. The upper left hand corner shows the video played through Microsoft Media Player. A slide index allows the student to navigate to any part of the presentation, to start, stop, or reposition the video. The instructor’s annotations display as they were originally made on the PowerPoint slide, synchronized to the audio and video.

Playback requires a normal Web browser equipped with a free Tegrity java plug in, downloaded on demand from the Internet. Tegrity presentations can be delivered to students in several different ways. The typical way to view them is from CIDDE’s Tegrity server, an IIS server running Microsoft Media Server and special Tegrity server software. The presentations are available in three different formats: high speed (for LAN or DSL connections), low speed (via 28K or 56K modem connections), and audio only (28K). Of course, the quality of the presentation’s audio and video components is better at the higher speed. The presentations can also be downloaded and run from the local PC.

..	Sample Tegrity Output

A good way to reach students who may not have high-speed Internet access is to burn the Tegrity presentations to a CD. This allows the Tegrity sessions to be stored and played back at the highest possible resolution. CourseWeb users can employ Blackboard’s “offline content” feature to allow their online materials to reference the Tegrity sessions stored on CD.

Although Tegrity sessions are built around PowerPoint presentations, Tegrity is not limited to displaying only previously created PowerPoint slides. The instructor can add a blank screen anywhere in the presentation and create its content in an ad hoc fashion using the attached stylus. The instructor can also take a “snapshot” of his or her computer desktop and add it to the presentation, along with any annotations. Tegrity also allows the instructor to incorporate the image of a flat or three-dimensional object by using Tegrity’s attached document camera. Finally, any video source can be substituted for the instructor video, with the graphic component still available for annotation.

One of the most exciting applications of Tegrity technology is to capture interactive television (ITV) sessions. CIDDE staff have learned how to integrate Tegrity into the University’s ITV classrooms. In this configuration, all of the audio and video inputs from both the near and far sites can be captured in the Tegrity recording, creating a rich multimedia record of the interactive television session.

CIDDE provides training in the use of Tegrity and supports its operation in the classroom or in a special recording room within the Faculty Instructional Development Lab in the basement level of Alumni Hall. Teg-rity can be used in classrooms in Alumni Hall, Posvar Hall, Lawrence Hall, and the Law Building. For more information, contact Michael Arenth, Assistant Director, Instructional Media Services at (412) 648-7236.

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