Looking for an easy way to make slide shows of my computer screen

There's lots of software out there to make videos of what's going on on your computer screen. Does anyone know of something (and free is nice) that might make it easier to take a bunch of slides of your computer screen and string them together into something like a PowerPoint?

As a History teacher I'm looking at showing the various movements in a battle and letting the kids look at a slide show later so they can review the movements step by step. Thus a video doesn't work so well.

I realize in Windows you can "print screen" and then paste it into a photo editing program, and then put it in PowerPoint, but that's hard to do as you're explaining something to kids in the class. There has to be a better way to string those images together into something slide show-like.

Any ideas?

Tags: ScreenCast, Slides

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Permalink Reply by Stephen Ransom on January 28, 2009 at 8:34am

Try Jing. http://www.jingproject.com/
You can make both screenshots or full motion video along with your voice narration (5 min. limit), making the need for PowerPoint moot.

Through the browser you can use ScreenToaster http://www.screentoaster.com/ or Flowgram http://www.flowgram.com/

Skitch (Mac OS only) is a hands-down winner for screen capture, editing, and annotation.
http://skitch.com/

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Permalink Reply by Kara Norris on January 28, 2009 at 10:19am

Do you have Smart Notebook software? (Works in conjunction with your SmartBoard) If not, you can download it for free from their website. As long as there is a SmartBoard in your county, you can download it. It has a recording feature with it.

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Permalink Reply by Steve Dickie on January 29, 2009 at 4:13am

I'd look at Windows Photostory to string the images together. It will allow you to do transitions like PowerPoint does but you can also zoom or pan ala. Ken Burns. You can also easily record a voice over narration if you want.

For saving images you might try LinktivityPresenter. I use it with my Wiimote whiteboard. One of the buttons lets you save a picture of the screen.

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Permalink Reply by Kev on January 29, 2009 at 7:21am

Whenever I do something like that I just use the animation features of powerpoint itself. It gives way more freedom and control than any other method I've found.