Screencast

Draft

Definition

“A screencast is a digital recording of computer screen output, also known as a video screen capture, often containing audio narration.” (Wikipedia, retrieved 20:22, 30 July 2007 (MEST).

Screencasts can be used to explain how to use some software. E.g. user interaction is recorded and explanations are given by a voice-over made at recording time or later.

A second use of the word "Screencast" refers to recordings of talks and seminars where slide contents + presenters voice are recorded.

See also

• Screen capture tutorial
• Screen capture and annotation software
• Podcast
• Rapid elearning

Software

Free Recording software

• CamStudio for Windows is able to record all screen and audio activity on your computer and create industry-standard AVI video files and using its built-in SWF Producer can turn those AVIs into lean, mean, bandwidth-friendly Streaming Flash videos (SWFs)
  • SourceForge site
  • CamStudio, the Official Blog.

• Wink. Wink is a Tutorial and Presentation creation software, primarily aimed at creating tutorials on how to use software (like a tutor for MS-Word/Excel etc). Using Wink you can capture screenshots, add explanations boxes, buttons, titles etc and generate a highly effective tutorial for your users. (Windows and Linux).

• Jing (MacOS, Windows)
  • widget that hides in the corner until clicked
  • image or video capture of selected area on screen
  • sound or mute
  • save to clipboard, locally or share
  • basic version free, added instant sharing and screencasting features for pro version

Video software

You also may just film some user interaction (i.e. via a webcam) or with a camera. But mileage is not so good in most cases. See: video streaming, multimedia container format, etc.

In education

Screencasts have been very popular in so-called rapid elearning but also gained a lot of attention trough the success of the Khan Academy or MOOCs.

• "Rapid" refers to production cost, i.e. it is much cheaper to produce screen casts than good written manuals or online interactive contents. In addition, this delivery mode is closer to traditional educational models.

See also:

• multimedia animation

Links

Overviews Screen casting

(capture of user interactions)

• Video Captures (Wikipedia)
• Screencast (Wikipedia)
• List of screencasting software (Wikipedia)
• J Udell's del.icio.us entries

Tutorials

• Capture a Screencast with a Mac by Miraz Jordan.

• What Is Screencasting, by Jon Udell, 11/16/2005

• How to Make Flash Tutorials With a Free Program Called Wink (Wink is a free program that you can use to create Flash tutorials on Windows or Linux).