Screencasting 101: Free or Inexpensive Tools to Capture the Experience!

ITC eLearning, 2/21/10
Stephen T. Anderson Sr., Associate Professor, University of South Carolina Sumter,
TCCD – Trinity River Campus, East Fork 7350A
http://www.uscsumter.edu/
http://www.tccd.edu/Campuses_and_Centers/Trinity_River_Campus.html

In this hands-on workshop, participants will learn how to create their own video tutorials using free or inexpensive software. Camtasia allows users to produce narrated Windows Media or Flash-based multimedia learning modules from “screen capturing” and transform PowerPoint slides into a narrated Windows Media or Flash video. Learn more advanced editing such as adding Webcam input, ink input from a tablet PC, title slides, transitions, callout boxes, background music and audio editing. Learn how to locate and capture imagery for use in presentations using PowerPoint, JING and SnagIt. We will then explore screencast.com, a free and inexpensive video-hosting service where your captures can be posted and easily distributed to your intended audience. Sound like a lot? It is very easy to do with the right software and just a bit of training. There is something for everyone, from the neophyte to the intermediate
user!

Notes:
Technolgies presented:
Jing
SnagIt
Camtasia
Screencast.com

Steve uses Camasia to edit together various sources of video such as YouTube video, Webcam recordings and other media to create and assembled video.

Steve walks us through the publishing process with Camtasia. He covered the various output formats and setting choices. He also covered sharing video on screencast.com which is a free video hosting service provided by TechSmith, the developers of Camtasia, Jing & SnagIt. Steve made good recommendations on which settings to choose depending on where you want to publish and distribute your screencasts.

Free version of Jing records to SWF (Shockwave Flash) format and is not editable in video editing software.

Steve also covered what the various files are generated when publishing video for the web from Camtasia.

HTML – webpage used to pull all the other files together in your browser
XML – meta file which contains data about the movie and settings used
JS – javascript file used for various webpage behaviors
MP4 – actually movie file
PNG – poster frame image
SWF – movie playback controller

By adding these files to a single zip file, you can then upload to your Blackboard and “unpackage” to extract the content for use in your course. Steve walked us through this process step by step.

Terms:
Screencasting – recording your computer screen and recording your

Links:
http://techsmith.com
http://screencast.com
http://ispring.com
http://camstudio.org - Free Streaming Video Software
http://wolframAlpha.com