Part of the new PRACE flexible delivery project is about showing information technology teachers how to set up a screencast in their classroom. Because there are a few different products on offer, i thought it would be useful to trial some of them up front.
Last year, we looked at Jing, as Lisa from Moreland showed her MYOB students some new skills. (Part 1, part 2.)
This time around, the buzz is on Screencastle.
Recording is straightforward and fast. You set the size of your screen grab and go. It’s easy to move the grab area around your screen. You start when you want to start. (Is there a pause button? Can’t recall.)
Upload process: worked fine on my machine, but there’s no indication of how long you’ll have to wait. But it does happen, and then eventually .. after uploading, you’ll get links for embedding, watching and downloading. Yes you can download the original file in FLV format (and i recommend doing this, just in case the service changes or you want to host somewhere else).
There’s no way to get membership yet, so there’s no social aspect going on. If you want to attract viewers, comments etc, you’ll need to embed your file in another environment such as teachertube,, or a wiki / blog.
Ah. i recorded three casts and the first 2 went magically, but the third one ended up a zero file. Darn. Frustration.
(PS: oh look, the embedded files are empty on this page. Hm. WordPress is stripping the embed codes. Boo. So i’ll download the files, and upload them to blip.tv instead.)
If you’re interested, the movies i’ve made focus on using google spreadsheets to create a “movable budget” .. that is, using formula to make a budget with variables you can adjust.
(i’ve tried to keep each video under 4 minutes.)
Chapter 1) introduction to entering your formulas
Chapter 2) adjusting the numbers
Chapter 3) recap
ah yes, this is what happened when i embedded from screencastle. Some funny tags wordpress didn’t like, involving curly brackets.
Links:
- screencastle.com
- Rick over at business hacks bnet has an intro to screencastle too.
- My videos on the screencastle site (chapter 1), (chapter 2), (chapter3)