Screencasting Webcast

This morning I attended Paul Pival's SirsiDynix Institute webcast called "Show and Tell The Easy Way: An Introduction To Screencasting". It was a very informative session with lots of great info that I can use as I start playing with making screencasts. Paul has some links from the session on his blog along with the PPT of the session.

The following notes are more for my use than anything else!

*Trends in ref Qs: make screen casts for popular Qs
*Staff training
*Easier to show than tell with written descriptions

*Central Michigan: text naration along with audio, fits within webpage (keep short, learn one thing very quickly)
*UCLA: comparison of GS and Cambridge Scientific, good audio quality

*interactivity: gerts users more involved in learning
-quizzes: t/f., multiple choice
-click points: practice what theyve leanred
-hotspots/ weblinks: end of cast - link to anything, create package of learning materials

*tips:
-keep em short - bandwidth/ attention span, less than 5 mins, closer to 2 or 3 (break features into separate casts)
-keep small: screen dimensions - only show what you need to show, keep LCD viewer in mind (monitor size)
-use audio: enthusiastic voice! record acudio as capture or dub later, speak clearly, captioning?
-annotate: call outs to draw attention to stuff
-plan ahead: do dry run

*tricks
-sizer: resize browser to uniform dimesion
-audio notes:quality audio makes big difference! dont use built in mic! USb beter quality

*output:
-flash for web delivery - everyone has it
-ipod: camtasi 4 direct mp4 for video ipod - images really small!
-size: no bigger than 800x600, but smaller even better, 700x400=1MB/ min download

-save as avi/ mov if putting on youtube
-link screencasts right next to dbs