Hello,

I recently downloaded the courselab elearning content authoring tool. Liked all its features. I have a number of presentations prepared in Microsoft Powerpoint. The presentation also has a speaker notes and the audio for the each slide (explanation of the topic in audio format). Is it possible to publish this kind of power point along with notes and voice. I have the powerpoint import extra pack purchased.

regards
indraveni

Powerpoint is designed around a whiteboard delivery making POINTS with support by a narrator,without that narration much content may be poor and often almost meaningless UNLESS it is designed from the outset to be self supporting.
The speaker notes don't have 'anywhere' to go to in Courselab or really in any other similar learning content delivery system. They are a part of the content and so should appear with the rest of the content either as textual content, a sound file or movie attached to the relevant page.
Giving training or teaching where you have to provide a large proportion of that content as the speaker clearly is radically different to where someone is reviewing that material remotely with no speaker present. The content then has to have the material content itself become the speaker.
Stop and think about what you are trying to achieve and communicate, make the module such that it can stand alone, if it needs copious supplementary comments or a volume of handouts then go back to your basic design and rethink it.
If it essential to have the narration for the material to work then transfer the audio to the module you are making, if this won't or doesn't work then you need to stick with your existing style of blended delivery.
This is a very good source of refernece materials and how to's from Australia...
http://designing.flexiblelearning.net.au/learning_design/sequences/QLD/index.htm
Athabasca university in Canada has some very good guides to the concepts of and developing e-learning materials (most of its content is on-line blended courses).
http://www.athabascau.ca/
Also see microsoft which has some powerpoint based training presentations in the templates section, these show what you can achieve with powerpoint, formal lectures they are not. The example below is what you should be aiming at for both Courselab (on an LMS or LCMS) and Powerpoint (on a CMS)delivered learning material.
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/templates/TC012111571033.aspx?pid=CT102036971033
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So notes not really; they are either supplementary printed material such as course notes or are built into the module.
Audio yes; it can easily be added as can movie files.

Hi,

Thankyou for the reply. As you said, if I decide to proceed with audio for each slide instead of notes, I am not finding an option of how to import voice into the course. I have the ppt, with voice inserted to slides. when i import the same ppt into the courselab, its not importing the audio. but giving the audio icon as present in the presentation. Should i manually import audio for each and every slide. If so, please tell me how.

thanks & regards
indraveni

Hi Indraveni,

I don't have the PowerPoint importer add-on. But if the audio and slide notes aren't automatically importing into CourseLab you could do it manually.

You can add sound files (like .wav or .mp3) to CourseLab. Open the properties of an object (Format Object) and click the Sound tab. Then navigate to the sound file. The sound file will be associated with the obejct (picture, shape object, or whatever you chose).

You can also add sound by using the Actions in CourseLab but I have not tried worked with this method.

You can add notes to each slide (similar to PowerPoint) by using the "Comments" in CourseLab. Select a slide, right click and choose Comments from the drop-down. Adding comments might be helpful if you want to keep internal notes for development purposes with each slide, or keep the audio script for each slide attached to the slide so you (the developer) have everything in one place. This is what I often use the slide notes for in PowerPoint.

If you use the "Comments" object in your course, the text you put in the Comments for each slide, will be available to the learner when they click the comments tab. I have not designed courses where I've used this feature, but it appears to function nicely if it meets your needs.