Week 10 - Screencasting!

Activity:
 

This week we’ll look at what I think can be a pretty powerful tool: Screencasting. Screencasting is when you use software to create a movie out of the video output from your computer screen. You can record yourself performing some task on your computer, add voice narration, and create demonstrations or tutorials. Here is an example to get you in the conceptual ballpark: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYapu-TDW30

Make a basic screencast.

1. First, read What is Screencasting by Jon Udell.
2. Go to the website for a free product called Jing. Download the free software using the link on the right side of the screen
3. Find the “Watch a video to see how” link on the Jing main page and watch the video
4. Go to the Jing Help Center and look through the various videos
5. Then, come up with a fairly basic (I’ll let you judge) computer-based task that you would want to demonstrate as part of a lesson for your students.
6. Using Jing, create a 1 – 3 minute demo/tutorial. If you have a microphone, I encourage you to add narration to your video
7. When you complete your video, follow the directions in the Jing Help Center to embed your video in a blog posting on your blog. In this same posting, provide a short written description on the purpose of your screencast (video) and how it would fit into or complement some larger lesson or goal for your students.
8. EXTRA:  if you find this valuable and are curious about more powerful tools for creating screencasts, I encourage you to go to the Camtasia website and learn about this tool. There is a free trial version available to download and they offer educational discount pricing

Reflection:

For your reading reflection, pick out two trends or issues that particularly surprised you and/or hit home and explain why