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Bakari Chavanu

How to Create Screencasts You Can Be Proud Of » The Rapid eLearning Blog - 4 views

www.articulate.com/...creencasts-you-can-be-proud-of

screencasts screencasting

shared by Bakari Chavanu on 14 Oct 09 - Cached
  • Record the best audio you can by using a good microphone.  You can get a decent microphone for less than $100.  And if you do a lot of recording, it makes sense to invest in a good one.   Here’s an example of two different microphones on the same laptop in the same room:  $30 headset and $72 desktop (with no pop filter or any other type of adjustment).
  • Turn off the A/C and fans.  Turn off the office machines.  Sometimes you’ll pick up some noise or humming when the microphone is too close to the computer, speakers, or other electronic devices.
  • Have some water handy.  I find that I do a lot of retakes on that opening line, so I tend to start and stop my screencasts.  This causes my throat to get dry really fast.  It’s easy for me to go from sounding like a smooth rapid elearning coach to Lauren Bacall in just a few takes.
    • Bakari Chavanu
      Bakari Chavanu on 14 Oct 09
       
      This is so true. My mouth gets very dry when I'm trying to do screencasts. This is a good tip.
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • Try to use less than 5 minutes.  Screenr gives you 5 minutes.  That doesn’t mean that you have to take all 5 minutes for the screencast.  An ideal screencast is 2-3 minutes.  If you find that the screencast is long, just break it into chunks.  
  • Sometimes I’ll change the resolution of my computer and do a full screen capture at a lower resolution.  When I bring it back up, it looks great and I was able to leverage a full screen for the capturing.  Play around with some techniques that work for you.
  • It’s easy enough to follow the mouse, but make sure to point out what they should be looking at when you change screens or focus on a new area.  This is especially true if you’re doing things they can’t see like using a keyboard shortcut.
  • If you have to do full screen videos where you show your desktop, try a product like Stardock’s Fences.  It’s free and can quickly hide your icons while you do your recording.  Here’s a tutorial to show how to use Fences to hide your desktop icons.
  • When you do screencasts from this account you don’t need to worry about hiding personal information like folders or toolbars in your browser.  I’d also make your desktop image a solid color rather than a distracting background image.  You can also try a virtual desktop.  Set one up just for screencast videos.  Here’s a demo of how to use a virtual desktop.   
  • One trick is to start with the final output.  Tell the viewer that this is what you’ll create and then jump to the tutorial and a different screen.
  • Screenr does come with some default settings that work well in your rapid elearning courses.  For example, 720×540 is the aspect ratio for a PowerPoint slide.  980×560 is perfect for videos in the no sidebar view mode in Articulate Presenter. 
  • If you find that you have to click on buttons and open other screens during your demos, then you want to use Alt+D to pause your recording between mouse clicks. 
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