Screencasting involves capturing the video of what is happening on your computer screen, and the audio as you talk your way through what you are doing. It is most often used for creating software demonstrations and “How to’s”.
Jing is a free piece of software from TechSmith that allows you to do this type of ’screen capture’ on both Mac and Windows and then save to your hard drive or share it with the world! Jing can capture still images or video and the audio of any application that is running (including your voice as well!) The final file output is a flash swf file which will play in all modern web browsers. With a little effort this can be converted to other formats for further editing in video editing software.
Why not get your students to create some demonstrations on how use various software packages? Get them to plan, outline, storyboard and think about their audience. There is some complex, high order thinking that goes into making a good screencast!
Some other software options include Snapz Pro (Mac), iShowU (Mac) CamStudio (PC), Wink(PC), Media Encoder (PC), Capitvate (PC), Camtasia Studio (PC) and of course a web2.0 version at screencast-o-matic.com
October 21st, 2008 at 7:17 pm
Jing is the new sliced bread! It is FANTASTIC I highly recomend it to everyone to give it a go and its so easy to use even the lack of technological savvy people can work it! Thanks!!