Today, a quick lesson on how to create and share instant "screencast" videos in your lessons.
What's a "screencast" video?
A screencast video is a video of something on your desktop. For example, you can create a screencast video explaining how to use a particular site or software. You can do a whiteboard presentation, narrate a PowerPoint presentation and more.
There are two tools I use to create instant online videos:
Camtasia - this is my tool of choice for creating screencast videos. It's a software program that runs on your computer. ($250)
Jing - this is the free online tool I use to create and add instant online videos to my lessons. This lesson will show you how I use Jing.
How to Use Jing to Create and Add Instant "Screencast" Videos to Your Lessons
Step 1: Click over to
www.JingProject.com.
Step 2: Download the Jing application for Windows or Mac by clicking the appropriate "download" picture.
Step 3: Install Jing on your computer.
Step 4: When you start Jing, you will be asked to create a free "Screencast.com" account (this is where your videos will be hosted). Go ahead and do it. (This is a great service, I actually paid to use it before I discovered Jing.) You can also post screenshots to Flickr or add your videos to a site using FTP.
When Jing is fully installed and ready to use, you will notice a gold bubble at the top of your monitor screen. To use Jing, just click the bubble.
To setup Flickr or FTP, access the "preferences" screen of Jing at anytime by clicking the Jing bubble that rests at the top of your monitor screen and selecting the "more" bubble, then the "Preferences" icon which looks like a gear picture.
Step 5: To create your first video, simply click the Jing bubble at the top of your monitor screen and click the first icon that looks like an a PLUS sign. This will launch the selector. Simply drag the selector on your screen to select the portion you want to record. Use the buttons that appear below the orange video box to start the recording (first button), pause (second button), mute your mic (third button) or to redo the screen select (fourth button) stop the recording (last button).
Once you finish recording your video, you will be able to preview it.
Then you can share (the first button), embed (the second), save (the third) or delete (the fourth button) the video using the buttons below the video.
Step 6: Simply click the share or embed icon. Your video will be uploaded to ScreenCast.com and you will have a link automatically added to your clipboard to add to your lesson page. Just paste the link where you want it to appear. You can also "embed" your video in your site or blog where you have access to use HTML.
Here's a quick video intro to Jing:
Here's a summary screenshot from the Jing website:
Go ahead, give it a try - its easier than you think
Tips:
- Video Time Limit - there is a 5 minute limit per video. If your video will take longer, simply plan out what you want to cover in segments.
- To add audio narration to your videos, use an external microphone for best results.
I use an AT3025 and an external sound card Edirol UA-25 for professional results - you can get everything for about $500 on eBay.com or you can start with an expensive plug-in lapel microphone from RadioShack (about $30).
To see how I use video, check out my "How to Start Your Own Internet Teaching Business" course at:
http://learnhub.com/courses/238
