eTEACH
all-platform friendly
TEACH,
the free software tool for authoring and delivering online lectures,
is getting an upgrade. Created by Professor Greg
Moses, Researcher Mike
Litzkow and Mathematics Professor (now emeritus) John Strikwerda
in 1999, eTEACH
is an authoring tool for delivering Web-based presentations that combine
video, audio and animations with slides, captions and quizzes. An instructor
can move his or her PowerPoint presentations to the Web and retain animations
and high-resolution slides. With eTEACH,
an instructor can present a multimedia lecture or laboratory demonstration
by integrating video, a PowerPoint slide presentation, and a Web browser.
Authors can use eTEACH
to create customized presentations, with synchronized video or audio.
They can control the timing of transitions and titles and vary the size
of the video window vis-a-vis the PowerPoint window. Depending on which
is more important to the lesson, the author can, for example, expand
the video window to highlight the speaker or the PowerPoint window to
show a slide with bullet points.
With the recent upgrade,
eTEACH
is now cross-platform. “The old version was a Windows-only application
for both presentation authors (professors) and end users (students),”
says Litzkow. “Authors had to download and install a Windows application
on their computers to create eTEACH
lectures. Now, they can author eTEACH
content from almost any machine that has a Web browser and a Flash plug-in.”
Students can now view eTEACH
presentations on almost any computer with a Web browser and Flash, a
feat tested on Windows and Macs with Internet Explorer and Firefox browsers,
Litzkow says.
The eTEACH
upgrade was funded through the UW-Madison Division of Information Technology
Engage Program.
