Getting starting with Screencasts

Michael Paskevicius

This work is licenced under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 South Africa License. To view a copy of this licence, visit

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So what is a screencast?

• A digital recording of a computer screen output often containing audio narration and/or subtitles

• As opposed to a screenshot, a screencast is a movie of the changes over time that a user sees on their monitor

• Screencasts are useful for demonstrating and teaching processes which one does in front of a computer

o To show how a task is accomplished in a specific software, desktop or web environment 

o Useful to show how to perform a tricky yet often performed task or process 

Screencasting to address a common issue How do I license my offline document or presentation using a Creative Commons license???

Do I have to call someone? 

Do I need to register?

Do I need to get a license number?

http://creativecommons.org/choose/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pvoie4ydSw

Screencast created to address this common question on our campus

http://www.microsoft.com/uk/msdn/screencasts/default.aspx Example

http://khanacademy.org/ Example

Tips for creating screencasts

• Be conversational

• Know your audience 

• Use appropriate language and terminology

• Emphasize parts of the screen as you demo (by selecting text or mousing over areas of the screen)

• Use a microphone

• Limit avoidable noise (don't be like this guy)

• Don't be shy - this is a web 2.0 contributory world  

 by  Watchcaddy 

by  visual.dichotomy 

Microphone

A microphone is often built into modern laptops

Whenever possible use a headset or microphone to ensure the best quality recording

Freely available software options

Camstudio - Web CamStudio is able to record all screen and audio activity on your computer and create industry-standard AVI video files and using its built-in SWF Producer can turn those AVIs into lean, mean, bandwidth-friendly Streaming Flash videos (SWFs)  

Debut Video Capture Software Web Record from your webcam, screen or video input device.  Record almost anything - anything you can see on your monitor can be

recorded  Record video and audio simultaneously

See 'Further reference' for more options

Introduction to CamStudio

Press to begin recording what is on your screen

Pause the recording

Stop the recording and save the file

Before your first recording

On the menu bar under 'Region', ensure that the region is set to 'Full Screen' (if you want to record the entire screen)

On the menu bar under 'Options', ensure that you have selected 'Record audio from microphone' (if you want to record your voice)

Ready to go...1. Make sure you have set up the resources you need for the

recording.  (eg. open required webpages, start required programs)

2. Make sure your screen/program is in a familiar state in which a student might also find themselves

3. Press record     on CamStudio and bring the desired window for recording into focus

4. When you are finished the screencast, bring up the CamStudio window and press stop

5. Name and save the file somewhere on your computer 

Dealing with the output • These files are BIG! 

• Commercial screencasting software will often offer advanced compression options

• You need to be clever with the Open Source recorders

• Video compression  software is expensive 

Free compression: Upload the file to Youtube then download the compressed MP4

OpenSource Compression Option

Software homepage Tutorial: Start at Step 2

Further reference

Screencasting 101 - slideshare presentation with podcast

Introduction to screencasting -  slideshare presentation  Wikipedia list of screencasting software programs 

Wikipedia comparison of screencasting software programs 

   

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 South Africa License. To view a copy of this license, visit

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/za/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA.

Prepared by: Michael Paskevicius Contact me: mike.vicious@gmail.com

OpenContent Directory: http://opencontent.uct.ac.zaOER UCT project blog: http://blogs.uct.ac.za/blog/oer-uctFollow us: http://twitter.com/openuct

Follow me: http://twitter.com/mpaskevi

Presentations: http://www.slideshare.net/mpaskevi