Information Technology

Stress free screencasts

Peter O’Donnell

Faculty of Information Technology

Learning Lunch Box – May, 2014

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The reality of screencasts

Hard to make

Very (very) hard to change

Require lots of time, energy and effort

Require considerable skill

Result seems …

– impersonal

– “set up”

– amateur

– boring

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Screenr.com

Lots of downsides (including)

– No editing

– 5 minute limit

Among the upsides

– Dead simple publishing process

– Browser-based so no setup or software to install

• Except Java

– Web archive

– Twitter/Facebook/YouTube integration

Surprisingly, also among the upsides

– No editing

– 5 minute limit

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Things I think work

Don’t over produce

– Don’t worry about editing, just let it happen,

warts and all

Don’t over think

– Keep it simple, natural and spontaneous

– … maybe even funny

Be prepared to be (very) personal

Keep it short and to the point

– The 5 minute limit works in your favor

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What it gives you …

The ability to provide personal and direct feedback

without having to meet

The ability to explain complex things, visually,

without having to prepare too much materials

– This is especially useful for technical problem

solving.

A “cool” factor with your students

– Not to be underestimated.

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Questions