For my “Bling that Blog” post I used Screencast-o-matic to record my screen and myself at the same time to demo my site. I am always in “How-to” mode and have found screencasts are far more efficient that writing out process instructions for any kind of software, platform or web navigation instructions or demonstration.
I am constantly teaching this tool, and others (like Camtasia) to instructors, boasting how easy it is to use and detailing what a time save it will be to record. For short lectures, introducing course navigation (bonus points for Chris for doing that for us) and even giving quick responses to students questions by video, its an obvious advantage to use this type of recorded demonstration. I find myself working with Math and process technology instructors lately on this for equations and graphs.
But truthfully, unless I stay practiced, I find it hard to keep in the flow of creating these, so I jumped at a chance to use this for this assignment.
I am trying to work on my own screencasts, to get more comfortable (less production, more on-the-fly tips, less um’s). When it comes down to it, its easy to get bogged down with pre-scripting and post-production. I am trying to find a happy medium to be efficient, yet professional, yet casual/conversatioal in my recordings.
One prep item I usually try to do before a screencast if I’m feeling rusty is look up “screencasting tips” articles and do a quick skim to refesh my brain on what I need to pay attantion to. Today, before screencasting, I read this article How to Make Screencasts You are Proud of.
Please don’t count my “um’s” 🙂
Screencast-o-matic is one of my favorites, too! It’s sooo much easier to use than Camtasia! Thanks for the list of the pointers–it is a much needed reminder for me!
Good resources here. Are you primarily screencasting from a Mac or Windows or the Surface (or other)? While I enjoy the greatly increased capabilities of Screenflow and Camtasia, the simplicity of Screencastomatic is so nice…makes it easier to create screencasts without a bunch of setup. Though I still find the resolution issue irritating (between changing screen resolution or resizing windows or dealing with the difference between retina display and YouTube reality)…
I’m mostly on my Mac. Although I adore the Surfaces’ pen abilities, I just cannot get to a a point with Windows 8 UI to make it usable for me.
I fought with (and see my faculty fighting with) dragging that Sceencastomatic window to fit what they are doing, and the consequences of that when we go to publish, and have been advising to always use full HD setting and zoom in on your content on your computer (or browser) to fit that. That seem to help but requires a bit of teaching some subset computer skills on the fly.
I have never used a screen-cast so I have a lot to learn. Thank you for sharing this information. Do you mind me contacting you directly when I have questions and need help?