Can Moodle Do A Good Job In Importing PowerPoint

Discussions from Moodle
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Jean-Marc Leblond said:
I need some help, I am trying to import a Power Point into my lesson and I keep on getting the following error code:"PCLZIP_ERR_BAD_FORMAT (-10): Unable to find End of Central Dir Record signature". Can anyone give me any direction?

James Chan said:
I have installed Moodle 1.7 on my test server. I placed the SQL outside the public directory. Today, when I tried to import a PowerPoint into a lesson, it just gave me an error message "could not get data".

The two questions are only the tip of the iceberg about importing PowerPoint to Moodle. You can hear such and such discussions every day on Moolde.org. Can Moodle do a good job in importing PowerPoint courses? Maybe not.

import PowerPoint to Moodle

There are many limitations about importing PowerPoint to Moodle
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* Complicated presentations with animations, transitions and graphic effects can not be imported
* This feature does not work with PowerPoint 2003 and onward
* Multimedia presentation with audios, videos and Flash movies cannot be imported normally

That is to say, you should keep your PowePoint course as simple as possible, and text only is the best. No image, no bullet, no audio, no animation and no...?However, such courses are none other than fatal points for effective course to catch the learners to performance.

Here is the way: Convert PowerPoint to SCORM compliant Flash courses
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Why Flash?
* Seamless conversion. You multimedia PowerPoint course could be converted to Flash seamlessly, and then the Flash course could be shown in Moodle as it is supposed to be.
* Smaller file size. Flash files are highly compressed and therefore, the preferred streaming media for the internet, or for quick files distribution. Presentations, when converted to Flash will become very portable and can be easily shared on Moodle, and also do not take up much space.
* Streaming technology. This enables you to play a movie file without waiting for the whole file to download. As the preferred streaming media, Flash can enhance your reach when you need to do big or lengthy presentations.
* Playback control. Flash offers more flexible playback controls like stop, pause, replay and etc.

Why SCORM compliant?
Once your PowerPoint is converted to SCORM 2004 or compliant Flash SCORM 1.2 compliant Flash, your course becomes "track-able", meaning, you can track the presentation in your Moodle.
Progress tracking features like, accessed time, number of viewed slides, presentation time and whether or not the presentation was completed by the user - are all available to you. It is ideal for instructional designers to focus on creating better e-learning content, in effect creating a force multiplier for e-learning effectiveness.

In summary, PowerPoint to Flash converter that allows you to "boost" your PowerPoint course presentations into and interactive and engaging, multimedia experience for your learners. The SCORM compliant feature will let your presentation be track-able.

Which tool to create Flash compliant course from PowerPoint?
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There are several tools that can export PowerPoint or other presentations as SCORM compliant Flash movies, you could go to http://docs.moodle.org/en/Tools_for_creating_SCORM_content to get more. Take Wondershare PPT2Flash Professional for example, this tool can help you convert PowerPoint course to SCORM compliant Flash for high-impact Web presentations and eLearning Courses with rich media, quizzes and simulations.

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