Screencasting

A screencast is a recording of computer screen activity, often accompanied by a narration. It is often used to demonstrate software because it allows the demonstrator to visually display exactly how a software application works as he or she is talking about it. Screencasts are typically uploaded to websites as compressed video files so that they can be easily accessed by their intended audience. Some screencasting software also allows users to create slideshows with narration.

Text-based Tutorials

Tutorial

Video Tutorials

Captivate Tutorial (Duration: 16:27)

Sample Screencasts

Tutorial

Introduction – A screencast is a video recording of computer screen activity that may or may not include narration. Screencasting can be used for many different purposes, but it is primarily used for software demonstration and training.
1. We will be using Macromedia Captivate. Captivate is a program that can be used to create either traditional screencasts, or slide presentations with narration.
Slide Presentations – When creating a slide presentation in captivate, there are a couple of things to keep in mind.
1. Content must come from outside the program.
  1. PowerPoint Slides, JPEGs, etc. must be imported– you cannot create content within Captivate.
    1. If you import PowerPoint slides, make sure the text is large enough to be legible.
  2. Video cannot be imported into Captivate, the program does not handle video.
2. Output is a . swf Flash file.
  1. Not a traditional video file – Can be played in a web browser or in the Flash Player.
Screencasting - You can capture the screen activity of the entire screen, a fixed portion of the screen, or of an open application window.
1. Captivate is geared towards software demonstrations, therefore it records screen activity related to user inputs (mouse clicks and keystrokes.
  1. If you need to capture screen activity that is independent of user input, such as animations or video games, hit the F9 key to enable the “capture all” mode, and the F10 key to return to Captivate’s traditional capture mode.
Narration – Recording quality narration is one of the most challenging aspects of screencasts or narrated slideshows. Here are a couple of tips to help you out.
1. Make sure the microphone is close enough to record your voice clearly, but not so close that it picks up every breath.
2. Whenever possible, write a script and narrate by reading the script.
3. Practice reading the script a few times before you start recording.
4. Enunciate, and use an animated, excited voice. You don’t want a boring narration.
5. When you narrate, speak a little faster than you normally would speak.
6. You will be able to delete portions of your narration when you are finished. Even if you mess up, keep talking, you can edit out mistakes later.

Remember, you want your final product to be engaging and interesting. If you are creating a slideshow, be sure to constantly change your visuals. Focusing on a PowerPoint slide for two straight minutes is not especially engaging or interesting. When recording narration, use a tone that is warm and expressive. You do not want narration that is dull, monotone, and obviously read from a script. Understand the capabilities of the program and then use your own creativity to produce an exceptional slideshow or screencast.

Captivate Lesson

Macromedia Captivate is a program that can be used for a few different purposes. Its primary function is to create screencasts for software demonstrations, but it is also an excellent tool to create slideshows with recorded narration. In these lessons we will first create a slideshow with narration, and then we will use Captivate to create a screencast by recording the screen activity of an application we select.

Lesson 1 – Create a Slideshow with narration

Open Captivate. You will be presented with a welcome screen that asks you what type of project you want to create. Choose Record or create new movie and then click on the Image movie button and click OK.
Click on the Preset size button and choose 640 x 480 Full Screen from the dropdown menu. Click OK.
Immediately a file window will open that allows you to select the pictures that you want to use for slides. Select all the pictures that you would like to use and click on Open. Each picture will be imported as its own slide. If you need to add additional picture slides later on, you can always go to Insert > Image Slides.
The images you select will most likely not be exactly 640 x 480, so Captivate needs to know what to do with them. It will either crop them to fit, or it will resize them. Check the Apply to all images checkbox and then click on Rescale. This will resize all the images you import with one click.
Save your project.
You have two tabs in the top left, the ‘Storyboard’ tab and the ‘Edit’ tab. The storyboard tab is primarily used for reordering the slides, the Edit tab includes the timeline for each slide and it is the view we will be using. Click on each slide on the left-hand side of the screen. Look at the timeline and notice how each slide is 3 seconds long by default.
Now we will record our narration. Click on the first slide and then click on the Audio button at the top. Click on the Record button to start recording your audio (note: if this is your first time recording this session, captivate will take you through a short test session to calibrate the volume of the microphone. After you are done recording hit the Stop button. Click on OK.
Look at the timeline again. You will see the audio clip you just created underneath the Slide 1 bar. The first thing we will do is cut out any unnecessary audio. Double click on the audio clip to edit it. Listen to the clip, there will most likely be periods of silence at the very beginning and very end of the clip. Click and drag to highlight the silence at the beginning of the clip and then click on the scissors button to delete that section of audio. Repeat these steps for the silence at the end of the clip. You can select and delete any other portions of the clip you want to remove as well. When you are done click on OK.
Right-click on your audio clip in the timeline and choose Edit timing from the popup menu. This window will look almost identical to the audio editing window, (and, in fact, you can edit your audio in this window if you want tobut it will have vertical slider bars for each slide in your slideshow. Move these sliders around to coordinate your slide transitions with your audio. When you are done click on OK.
To preview your slideshow click on the Preview button and choose Movie. When you are done with your movie click on Publish.

Lesson 2 – Create a Screencast

Open a program that you would like to record (a web browser for example.
Open Captivate. You will be presented with a welcome screen that asks you what type of project you want to create. Choose Record or create new movie.
Click on the Custom size button and click OK.
Click on the Preset sizes dropdown menu and choose 800 x 600 Full Screen.
In the dropdown menu that says Optionally, select a window you’d like to record, select the open window you would like to record. Click on the button that says Snap window to fit inside the red recording area.
Decide whether or not you wish to record narration, and check the box accordingly. Click on Record.
By default Captivate only records screen activity that is related to mouse clicks and keystrokes. This works well for software demonstrations, but it does not work well if there is screen activity that is independent of your input (such as animations, or a game. To get Captivate to capture all screen activity independent of your mouse clicks and keystrokes, simply press the F9 key. To switch captivate back to its default capture mode, press the F10 key.
When you are finished recording your movie press the End key. Captivate will divide your movie into slides which you can view and manipulate in the ‘Edit’ tab and the ‘Storyboard’ tab. Save your project.
To preview your slideshow click on the Preview button and choose Movie. When you are done with your movie click on Publish.

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