Unit 3 - Improving Your Screencasts

Unit 3: Improving Your Screencasts

In this unit we will integrate simple techniques and simple software to combine with our knowledge of Unit 2's instant screencasting software. Utilizing these simple improvements will help us create more effective sccreencasts for our learners.

Objectives:

Participants will learn how and why to use storyboarding and scripting to improve their screencasts.
Participants will learn how to pace their screencasts based on the time limitations built into their software.

Lesson 1 - Storyboarding and Scripting

Creating a storyboard or a script for your screencast videos can greatly improve their quality. Remember while you may have to repeat an idea in the classroom, it is often not necessary on video, students will have the ability to watch your video as many times as they need to grasp a particular concept. They will also have the ability to skip forwards and backwards in your videos. Keep this concept in mind when you plan out your instructional videos.

Read through these documents in order to learn how to create a storyboard or script for your videos.

Activity Read: How to Write a Good Script

Activity Read: Why storyboard your screencasts?

Activity Read: The Easiest Way to Create a Storyboard for your Video

Activity Read How Fast Do You Speak?

How long will your script be?
Word count	Length of video
3750	30 minutes
625	5 minutes
500	4 minutes
375	3 minutes
250	2 minutes
125	1 minute

Now that you have learned the importance of scripting and storyboard, we are going to put this theory into practice:

Activity Write: a sample script for a 1 minute video

Lesson 2: ZoomIt - Zoom and Draw in Your Videos

ZoomIt will allow you to draw and zoom in on areas of the screen. This can be used on a projector or for the purposes of this course, will be picked up by screencasting software and will appear in your videos. ZoomIt has a variety of features that can really enhance basic screencasting software.

With ZoomIt you will be able to:

Draw with different colors on the screen
Create arrows to highlight areas of interest on the screen
Type on the screen
Zoom in and out of areas of the screen

The possibilities are endless. In the next activity you will see some of the possibilities of ZoomIt:

Activity Watch: ZoomIt Demonstration

In this next activity you will learn more about how to use all of ZoomIt's features.

Activity Watch: ZoomIt Tutorial

ZoomIt is a great way to combine basic software to create a more advanced look.

References

A Demonstration of ZoomIT. (2009, August 4). Retrieved from http://youtu.be/5fhZv4jrhaI

Curtis, M. (2011, January 10). How to Write a Good Script. Jing Blog. Retrieved April 2011 from http://blog.jingproject.com/2011/01/how-to-write-a-good-script.html

Morgan, L. (2010, June 1). Zoomit Tutorial: Tips on how to use zoomit. Retrieved April 2011 from http://youtu.be/aM1_KD3CGlI Morgan, N. (2008, January 15). How Fast Do You Speak?. Public Words. Retrieved April 2011 from http://publicwords.typepad.com/nickmorgan/2008/01/how-fast-do-you.html

Naylor, L. (2011, February 2). The Easiest Way to Create a Storyboard for Your Video. Learn Camtasia. Retrieved April 2011 from http://www.learncamtasia.com/free-articles/the-easiest-way-to-create-a-storyboard-for-your-video/

Russinovich, M. (2011, May 3). ZoomIt 4.2. Windows Sysinternals. Retrieved May 2011 from http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897434

TechSmith. (n.d.). Screencasting Best Practices. Retrieved from http://www.screencast.com/help/tutorial.aspx?id=403

Weber, B. (2006, November 21). Why storyboard your screencasts?. The Visual Lounge. Retrieved April 2011 from http://visuallounge.techsmith.com/2006/11/why_storyboard_your_screencasts.html