Using Screencasts to Teach

Screencasts are a great new way to teach others how to exactly do something online or on the computer.  There are a couple of great, free, easy to download programs that will allow you to make screencasts.

Screencastomatic and Jing are just two.  Screenr is mentioned below, but requires Java in order to run correctly.

Screencast-o-matic

I have actually used Screencast-o-matic before.  I used it to present a program I had come up with.  I started off with a flier and then I showed how to find something on the computer and how to use it.  However I recently used it to demonstrate how to use Pixton.  Since using it the first time, they have improved it.  There is a quicker version that they are using.  I found it essentially the same.  Once you download it, you simply just have what you want talk about ready to go.  A small rectangular button appears at the bottom of your screen and you click record.  It gives you a short countdown of about 4 second and then your are "on the air." 

I found it was really easy to use.  There didn't seem to be a time limit to it.  I actually spent seven minutes going into how to use Pixton and I was able to get pretty far into it.  I didn't have any problems with the program.  I am not particularly well versed in teaching using screencasts, so I had to delete and start over a couple of times because I wasn't satisfied with my recording.  But besides this, it was very easy to use. 

 

Jing

I uploaded Jing quite easily.  It took only a matter of seconds to upload, and once uploaded it was very easy to use.  The only problem I had with it, was that it limits your screencast time to five minutes only.  Once you go over that time, you have to upgrade and therefore pay for the longer time.  It was similar to Screencast-o-matic, however it puts a "yellow ball," on the top of your desktop and when you scroll over it, it gives you a choice of doing a video cast or a picture cast.  It also shows you your history and some other options.  You can get rid of the "yellow ball," by going to settings and exiting out. 

Besides there being a five minute time limit on the screencast, the file could only be saved as a "shockwave file."  My computer could not read it and so I was not able to embed the file into my blog.  I found I had to download another program called "screencast.com" so I could put the file on that and then embed it into my blog.  The file took an extremely long time to load into screencast.com.  Once downloaded I could embed the video, I could only embed the link as shown below. 

So Jing versus Screencast-o-matic, I would have to go with Screencast-o-matic because of the longer amount of time it gives you and the ease and speed I had with it. 

http://www.screencast.com/t/wizRW7AjwAiK


Screenr

I tried using Screenr.  As shown above, you have to have Java in order for it to run.  I thought I would go ahead and install it and try it out anyway, however when I got it installed and tried it out, I found Screenr still would not work.  I kept on getting error messages.  Perhaps at one time Screenr was a good program to use, but I found it be incompatible with the computer I had. 

From the three screencasts I looked into, I found Screencast-o-matic to be the easiest to use of all.  It was very reliable, and it had everything I needed in order to make a good screencast.  It was the winner in my book.