Thursday, April 9, 2015

Show, Don't Tell: Screencasting 101 Chris Betcher

Show, Don't Tell: Screencasting


All these notes directly from Chris' presentation...
  • Prepare your computer...
    • clean up the desktop, remove distracting wallpaper
    • decide what you want to capture and resize windows if necessary
    • close unnecessary windows
    • prepare the screens, examples and files you want to use
    • turn off distractions such as message popups, notifications, etc
Quick and easy, or taking your time to make a quality screencast.

Think through the story or narrative of what you are trying to create...

  • Prepare your physical environment...
    • find a quiet spot to record
    • avoid rustling papers, squeaking chairs, barking dogs, passing traffic, etc
    • use a good desktop microphone, or headset/mic set if possible
    • if you include video of yourself, check for good lighting, framing, etc
Think through all of these.  Good quality mic is necessary.

  • Prepare yourself...
    • design the lesson you plan to give
    • think about what you will say and how you will say it
    • keep it short, sharp and to the point
    • your lesson should be as long as it needs to be, but no longer!
    • use a script if you feel you need one
    • rehearse, rehearse, rehearse!
Rehearsing is very important

  • Now go!
    • speak clearly and articulate your words
    • find a speech rate that works for you, not too fast, but not too slow
    • describe what you're doing on screen and match your descriptions to your actions
    • keep your mouse still unless you're actually doing something with it
    • be yourself!
  • Evaluate
    • be prepared to do a couple of takes! It's rare to get it right first go
    • watch your screencast back and evaluate your effort. if you think you can do better, do it again!
Snagit for Chrome - install app and extension

Ability to capture a screen shot and share the url to it.

Short videos, animated gifs, Longer videos go to youtube...

Challenge - 
Create a still snap, annotated
Create a simple video - 10 seconds

Screen Castify - add extension only

WOW - I need to explore this further - appears to be incredibly easy to use either...

SNAGIT app - buy $30 ish

Fuse 




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