I'm following Richard's lead here, and starting a thread for all things Captivate. I'm currently using Captivate 3. I've got some experience incorporating video, captioning, and javascript into Captivate projects. I'm also interested in exploring the use of branching scenarios to create self guided tutorials, in the style of the Choose Your Own Adventure series (I loved those books!). Feel free to hit me up with any questions you have about Captivate!

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I have been using Camtasia Studio 5 (and upgrade) since last May. I've learned to use callouts, quizzes, click to continue and producing to .swf, avi and flv. I've also gotten an account at toofast.ca that allows me to embed a link to a feedback survey.
Anyone who is starting with Camtasia, feel free to contact me via this wiki.
Richard

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Hi everyone, my library has developed several tutorials in house aimed at students in particular courses, at the request of our faculty. I know many vendors including Ebsco and Credo Reference have their own resource sections and tutorials within the databases themselves.

I was wondering how many of you utilize resources from the vendor as opposed to creating your own tutorial? Do you point students to a mix of both from your website? I figure some believe there is no sense in "reinventing the wheel" while others like to create their own so they can "brand" the tutorial and include their logo, contact info, etc.

Any thoughts?

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Hi all,

I'm looking at purchasing some microphones that can be used for recording audio when doing screencasts here at our library. I've been creating tutorials using Adobe Captivate and a blue snowball usb mic, but am planning to do some staff training on things like Jing and Captivate in the future so that more of our librarians can be involved in tutorial creation. Headsets make sense, and I'm also thinking that a webcam/mic would be good so that librarians can utilize the camera for webconferencing in the future.

Does anyone have strong opinions/recommendations on webcams and mics for screencasting and webconferencing? If so, let me know! Thanks!
-Lauren

Lauren Ray
Educational Outreach Services Librarian
University of Washington Libraries
olray@u.washington.edu
AIM/Yahoo/MSN/Gmail: laurenref
206.543.6847

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Hello everyone:

I recently sent out a post telling everyone to set up their profile to Watch our Discussion Forum. Typically you would log in, Click on Discussions, and then see an Easy Edit Button with options beside it including More Tools. You would select More Tools then Watch Page (if you are on the page you want to watch - such as the Discussion Forum page.)

Unfortunately, I was told that someone was having difficulties. When I went to the Discussions Page, I noticed that the Easy Edit - More Tools options were not on this page. http://ants.wetpaint.com/thread/ They were however on other pages such as the Home Page.

I did notice that if you opened a Specific Thread (like Choosing a Software), that there was a Watch this Page link at the top. This means you can tell it to watch a specific thread, but as far as I can determine the option to watch the Discussion Forum in general (so you will be notified any time someone starts a new thread) is missing.

I have e-mailed Wetpaint about this and am awaiting an answer. I want this to work so Library Screencasters can talk with their colleagues and learn from one another. If it is not corrected, the only thing I can think of would be to use an RSS Aggregator that does not need Feeds provided by the site.

I will let everyone know what I hear when Wetpaint responds.

Carmen Kazakoff-Lane

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Everyone should be pleased to learn that we are no longer having trouble converting files to m4v and this means that our episodes are now available via iTunes!

To Subscribe to episodes via our iTunes feed, go to feed://liontv.blip.tv/rss/itunes/ and select Actions - subscribe to iTunes.



Big thanks to Paul Betty for making sure the folks at Blip.TV worked on this until it worked smoothly! Paul also got LION TV to send episodes to the Internet Archive earlier this Fall!

Cheers,

Carmen Kazakoff-Lane

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Screencasting with Jing is different from using Camtasia Studio from the same company, Techsmith.
Camtasia has a large feature list, you can edit it forever...
Jing produces a flash video that does not allow editing. Jing creates embed code and stores it in your free account at screencast.com. However, you cannot edit the dimensions in a Jing video in the same way you can edit embed code from a Camtasia Studio swf.
We have started using Libguides and they have a box that runs embedded video within a box. This is ideal for very short flash videos. I am not scripting them and keeping them under 90 seconds.
A sample one is at http://camosun.ca.libguides.com/CanadianHistory under the Tab "Tips - video format"

What seems to work is to create a page for these videos.
If you toggle columns,the left and centre column is about 725 pixels wide.
If you want to keep 3 columns, the centre column can take a video 475 x 400 pixels. I have found that a video in the left column is too small to display properly in the box and I am trying to avoid having students go to full screen by default.

Resize your browser window to about 800x600.
When you start Jing, set the capture to 700 pixels wide by 400 high, although the height is less important.
Or 475 x 400 depending on your design.
I think the 2 cols could go to 720 pixels or so and still fit.

Capture a video, upload the embed code to screencast, then paste the embed code from your clipboard into the libguides embedded video box.

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I saw the following posting on the Springshare User community:


"06-02-08 04:11 PM - Post#232

I believe this may have been discussed previously, but I cannot locate that earlier post.
I'd like to use some of the ANTS tutorials (http://www.screencast.com/users/ants/folders/Da tabase%20Tutorials) as embedded video on my libguides, but the videos are too large to fit into the center column boxes. I've edited the width and height in the code, and while this does reduce the size it also only makes that small portion of the video visible. Has anyone figured out a trick or how-to to making these videos smaller without losing any of the visual content?"

Kate
UWM

To answer the Question, one thing you can do if you are using Libguides it to use our tutorials at LION TV (see http://Liontv.blip.tv/ ) It not only has embedding code - the dimensions of which you can alter - it has more. In particular, you can embed these tutorials and then use the Full Screen Toggle to bring up the full screen in a separate window (thereby making it larger and not losing any content.)

I embedded several in my libguides. You can see them at:

http://libguides.brandonu.ca/content.php?pid=11352

http://libguides.brandonu.ca/content.php?pid=18094

I do hope this helps.

Carmen Kazakoff-Lane
Kate
UWM

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How can you collaborate on a tutorial?
You can be a content expert or you can be the one with the software license.

When you are considering doing an animated tutorial, the project may seem daunting when you think of everything you need to do.
Get an idea, write a script, then record it and do the editing. Even if you are pretty good with Captivate or Camtasia or Viewlet builder, the front end takes work. The planning is just as important as the recording, even more so.

I saw in this wiki that Bill Badke had committed to do a tutorial on Research questions. I had no pressing project and am on Professional Development so can try new things. I proposed that we work together on this one.

So, we split the work.
Bill knows a lot about information literacy, I have developed my skills on Camtasia. We live 80 km apart so needed a virtual workspace.
He wrote the script in his space on PBwiki and invited me as an editor. You can see the script at
http://badke.pbwiki.com/Research-Questions

After an unrecorded run through, I added a few sentences in places where I thought I needed more narration to cover the length of time that a slide needed to be on the screen.
Slides and Camtasia were a new thing for me. I have used Camtasia as a way to capture a flow of changing computer screens. This project needed something else, so I created the visual part of the script in powerpoint, then recorded the narration as I clicked through the powerpoint show.

If you are working with faculty and they can create content in powerpoint, that is probably an easier learning curve for them than working out a script for an internet search project. You can add the voice and do the production and uploading.

The final product is at DSpace:

http://hdl.handle.net/1880/46628

From my initial proposal to the completed project was about 6 or 7 days, so you can execute your ideas very quickly.

Richard

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I have realized that knowing how to produce a tutorial in Camtasia does not mean that I have to do it alone.
Just like in the real movies, there are functions that can someone else can do.

One of our librarians was between projects and on a quiet reference desk.
I asked her to write a script for the Sage Criminology tutorial.
She made a great script in a 3 column table. Narration in the left, mouse action in the centre and callouts in the right.

I put it through a dry run, testing my cadence and how the narration matched the mouse movements. I added some narration, deleted a bit, then recorded and produced in about 4 hours total.
So if you are a subject ace and someone at your library can produce in Camtasia, team work will even out the workload and produce a better tutorial.
Richard

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