Are you over the snow?  It’s been a white winter, that’s for sure!

More importantly are you teaching a course where you really need all of those pesky lecture hours? Do you know what online courses do when it snows really bad?  They keep going.  We have the technology so that you can keep going to!  I’m going to share a trick with you that will let you “flip” those snow days. (Flipping is when you listen to the lecture at home, and do active learning/group work/homework in the classroom.)

Do you have a SBCapture account?  Yes?  Go here: https://echoserver.sinc.stonybrook.edu 

Now go to the Downloads tab, and grab personal capture for the OS that you prefer. (Your choices are Win and OSX – don’t go getting all RaspPi on me!)

This software allows you to capture the video from your screen, audio from your mic and optionally, the video from a webcam.  This way you can sit in front of your computer and give your lecture.  There are simple edit capabilities, you can pause the recording in the middle and directly load the finished product straight into Blackboard.

Unless you are already using SBCapture for room based capture this semester, you will need to drop me a line so that I can make the appropriate hooks on the backend between SBCapture and Blackboard, but that is simple enough.  Same goes for if you don’t already have an SBCapture account – just let me know, and I’ll set everything up.

FORM to request Personal Capture

Here is an example of what an end result looks like using Personal Capture:

(In this case the webcam was setup to the side… yours might be a tight shot of your face.)

I hope that you find this, and find it helpful!