Preparing Online Lecture Materials

When developing an online course, you will likely include online equivalents to classroom lectures. eLearning Services provides a range of tools to help you with this process, including Impatica, Captivate, Wimba, and video streaming. 

Online lectures are very different from classroom lectures. Here are guidelines for converting your classroom lectures for use online:

• Each individual lecture should be no more than 15 minutes in length. You should "chunk" your classroom lectures into several smaller segments to promote easy access and re-use in other courses. Individual lectures can be grouped within Blackboard so students can easily move from one "mini-lecture" to another.
• Lectures based on PowerPoint slides should be produced using Impatica or Captivate. This will insure that students will be able to clearly read the slide contents.
• Consider varying the media used in your lectures: lectures with high visual content should be prepared with Impatica or Captivate; lectures relying on verbal content can be recorded as podcast lectures focusing on demonstrations and group activities can be digitally recorded for streaming.
• At the beginning of each lecture, provide students with a brief outline of the lecture contents.