YouTube meets PowerPoint 2010: Techie Mediation

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to (finally) really get involved with Freshman Academy after 5 years of assisting, but always standing on the sidelines for the actual event.

For the last 2 years I helped devise the curriculum, but couldn't actually be a part of the delivery due to scheduling conflicts & my cancer recovery last year.

This year I made sure I would have the opportunity to get involved first hand so I could really measure the results of our efforts & share the great work our homeroom advisors & the Coordinator do throughout the program.

This is where things got out of hand between YouTube & PowerPoint. On the first day of Freshman Academy the students take an Anti-Bullying pre-test and a diagnostic exam so we can measure how much they learn from the presentations spread throughout the week, and specifically measure our anti-bullying curriculum.

At the end of Day 1 I took the pre-test home to grade & run data analysis. Once I was done gathering the data I decided to create a PowerPoint outlining the results so I could make handouts for the students to study from before their post-test on the last day.

Everything went smooth, copying data tables, statistics & facts until the last slide was before me-waiting patiently for this embedded YouTube video.

I cannot tell you how many times I got this message:

I think at one point I actually almost cried! Seriously, this presentation was that important to me.

I mean really, it brings real data, an important topic & music together-what School Counselor wouldn't love this combination?

I pretty much tried everything. I went through the help topics, no help. Then I searched the web for what seemed like an eternity & finally found an article about using Windows Media Player to embed the video into PowerPoint. Finally, my prayers were answered.

I started reading the article and just before I could really get down to business my husband came home & it was time for dinner. After family dinner I went back to the computer to start reading again & just before I could really make sense of how the process worked my 2 year old demanded his bath. Really, this is my world!

And as fate would have it, as I am bathing my son, my husband sits down at the computer & navigates away from the article and when I attempt to intervene, he closes the window! @&$/$&@ I could not make this chaos up. **Sigh**

I regroup and try to find the article again. I didn't have any luck, but I did stumble across an even easier way to complete the job--A YouTube Plug In for PowerPoint.

So simple. Download the Plug-In, import it into PowerPoint & follow the simple directions to add a the video to your presentation (Happy dance!). As a disclaimer I did encounter a couple of issues with this method:

1. You must start the presentation from the menu across the top of the program. If you try to use the shortcut icon at the bottom of the page the video won't work, weird, I know.
2. Once you play the video it does not rewind it-you must do it yourself before you exit the presentation view.
3. The annoying adds come up during the video, but you can just X out of them.
4. The plug in puts lots of extras on your computer. I went to my Control Panel and deleted them all, but I was very annoyed with this.

Other than those minor issues it worked like a charm & I was very pleased with the result. Once I got the two programs talking, let them clear the air & learn how to communicate better all was right in my world again.

I will share my final product below.

You will need to download it to view the show and "Enable Content" and "Enable Editing " before you launch the show.

 If you click the image of the fingers crossed on the next to last slide it will take you directly to the video also (my back up plan). The last slide where I embedded the video is also there.

Check out my final product.

Do you use a different method? I would love to know if there is an easier way to do this. Please comment & share your tips below.