692R-2008-Book-Screencasts

New Media, Social Media, and Learning Chapter: Screencasts Tool Family: Screencasts

Intro
All the screen's a stage and YOU are the director! This chapter will help you become (drum roll, please.....) a screencaster! (ta-da). You'll learn how to use a screencasting tool to direct the action and narration on your computer, and record the output. This way you can quickly share your thoughts, understanding, skills, know-how, and ideas with others simply by recording what's happening on your computer screen. Screencasting is a great way to show, teach, and learn by example!

Gospel Context
"Come, Follow Me..." ''"And the eyes of them that see shall not be dim, and the ears of them that hear shall hearken." (Isaiah 32:3)''

The importance of example in learning, teaching, and living the gospel abounds in the scriptures:

2 Ne 31:16, Alma 17:11, D&C 94:2, D&C 78:13, Titus 2:7, John 5:19.

An Ensign Article discusses the importance of showing an example, and then having the learner try it:

Elder Ballard relates as an example an experience he shared with a returned-missionary grandson who wanted to hang some things on the cinder-block walls of his apartment. Elder Ballard went to his grandson’s apartment to show him how to drill holes and put in anchors.

"I did one and then asked him where he wanted to put the next one. He showed me, and I said, ‘OK, put it there. You saw me do it. Now you do it. Here’s the drill.’ So he did it. And he did the rest of them too. He went slowly because he was nervous. I could have done it twice as fast. But now he knows how. It built his confidence. If he wants to hang something else, he’ll just come borrow the tool. I hope he brings it back!' " (Dieter F. Uchtdorf and M. Russell Ballard, “Tending the Flock: Teaching Leadership Skills to Youth,” Ensign, Jun 2008, 16–21)

A New Era article with another example of the same concept:

"When Brother Charles W. Dahlquist was a mission president, he met a shepherd with his sheep near Kassel, Germany. He asked the shepherd if he led the sheep or if he followed them. The shepherd said, 'It all depends. If it’s someplace they’ve been before, the sheep lead and I follow. If it’s someplace new, I lead and they follow me.' Wise leaders [teachers] know this and set the example and then let others lead [do]. When that happens, new leaders [learners] gain the confidence they need to apply those same skills (Sally Johnson Odekirk, “Good Shepherds,” NewEra, Apr 2008, 18–23)"

Among other things, screencasts are visual examples of exactly "how" to accomplish a task, so the viewer can then try it themselves. "You saw me do it. Now you do it. Here’s the drill."

If a picture is worth 1000 words, then a screencast must be worth millions!

Screencast History
Originally, screencasts were developed to demonstrate, sell, or teach software applications. The first screencasts involved using a regular (not even digital yet!) camera or video camera. Besides the less-than-acceptable quality of the result, you needed a TV and VCR, or some other type of playback system besides your computer to watch the video. It wasn't long before software was developed to capture the exact output of the computer screen to a graphic, or even capture movement and audio (a movie) that can be played back on your computer itself! Today there are many tools to capture a screencast; everything from expensive and complex proprietary software, to shareware, freeware, and even run-from-your-browser tools!

Screencast Uses
Just as the software developed over time, so did the uses of screencasts. They're still great for professional demos, training, and marketing, but everyday computer users can use them too. How are screencasts commonly used? One word of warning: screencasts can contain inappropriate material. You need to be just as vigilant about selecting screencasts to watch as you are for viewing any material on the internet.
 * Screencasts are most commonly used for simple and quick "how to" tutorials.
 * There are many educational screencasts on TeacherTube - the equivalent of YouTube for educational purposes.
 * Some people have found screencasts to be a useful tool in demonstrating a problem with their computer - or a bug in a program. Describing the problem isn't nearly as convincing as seeing it happen.  So they make a screencast and send the link to someone who might be able to diagnose or fix the problem.
 * Screencastcentral.com is a website that has a whole collection of screencasts that are already published on the web.

What are some other screencasting ideas or examples?


 * Does mom want to know how you transposed that church hymn, and printed it? Send her a link to your screencastthat shows her how!


 * Does Uncle Brian need to see how you downloaded the new video player for conference? Make a screencast to show him!


 * Does one of your classmates need help signing up for a family history indexing account? Walk her through the process with a screencast.


 * Is there a video on www.mormon.org that you'd really like your friend to view? Show her how to navigate to find and play it, and while you're making the screencast - don't forget to record your own voice telling about your thoughts, experience, or testimony of the principle or doctrine.


 * Do you know someone who is trying to memorize all the scripture mastery scriptures - but needs a little help? Make a screencast about the memorization tool that is available for that very purpose, and send them a link to it.


 * Another great use of a screencast is for presentations - especially if you happen to be somewhere you don't have internet access - but you want to demonstrate or present something on the internet. Record a screencast earlier (with or without recorded narration) for use during your presentation.  Of course - that means the screencast (or a copy of it) needs to be saved on your computer.  This may be a wise backup plan for an important presentation even if you plan on using the internet -  just in case the connection goes down - or is not as fast as it needs to be.

Screencasting Information and Tools
Where can I find more information about screencasts? (How much do you know about screencasts, and would you like to know more?)

You may want to take a look at some of these wikipedia pages:


 * There's one page that has general information about screencasts
 * There's one that lists screencasting software and tools, according to type of operating systems.
 * And there's one that actually compares  different choices for screencasting tools or software.

John Udell has written extensively about screencasts. His What Is Screencasting article was written in 2005, but remains a great post to read. It covers such things as:
 * Kinds (genres) of screencasts
 * Screencasting Tools (of course there are several more now)
 * How to Make a screencast (not the specific tool, but the planning)

Which screencasting tool is best? That all depends on your budget, operating system, level of expertise, and most importantly: your purpose. We've chosen Jing to highlight in this chapter for several reasons:
 * It's free.
 * It runs on both Mac OS X and Windows systems.
 * It's fairly simple, and easy to learn and use.
 * The output is a flash file, which almost all browsers can display.

Jing is simple enough for beginners and still functional and effective for experienced users too. After learning to use Jing you may want to try some other screencasting tools, just to experience their differences and features. For example, if you want to record the action on the screen and later sync it to pre-recorded audio mixed with music in the background, you can't do that with Jing, but you can with other tools like Adobe Captivate. Of course screencasting tools that have many complex features usually aren't free. However many (like Captivate) have free trial versions so that you can try it before you buy it, to make sure it will serve your needs.

One screencasting tool that is run completely from your internet browser is called Screentoaster. We used Screentoaster to record some of the screencasts demonstrating Jing in this chapter (because you can't use Jing to record Jing!) At the time of this writing Screentoaster is still in Beta, meaning that it may not be ready for final release - but it's pretty close! You can sign up (for free) and start using it right away at www.screentoaster.com. With screentoaster you record the video, then dub over the audio. You can also add subtitles - which is kind of nice. It doesn't have the annotation features of Jing, however.

How Do I Install Jing?
(Please Note: The following screenshots and directions are for the Windows, but the Mac Installation will be very similar.)

Other Free Online Tutorials

 * Here is a link to some tutorial screencasts about using Jing on screencastcentral.com
 * CamStudio Tutorial
 * Advanced (and a bit dated) Screencasting tutorials

Screencasting to Better Share and Learn the Gospel
How are people already using screencasts?


 * If you have access to YouTube, here's an exampleof a screencast created in 2007 by the Moregood foundation. It highlighted the redesign of LDS.org
 * A site for Mac Genealogists has several screencasts. You can find a beginning screencast here, and from there you can find links to quite a few others

What are some other ways I could share or learn the gospel with screencasts?

As you may have noticed throughout this chapter there are many ways to learn and share the gospel through screencasting.

There is a wealth of material on www.lds.org that may be mostly untapped, mainly because people do not know it is there, or do not know how to access it. Screencasts that show how to use or find these resources would be a great way to learn or share the gospel.

For example: besides all of the great resources you probably already know about, did you know that from www.lds.org you can also:

"'These online children's songs in ASL not only help deaf children learn the gospel, but they also provide an excellent and enjoyable way to teach sign language to hearing children, who can benefit from ASL as a way to better understand the full meaning of the lyrics.'"
 * Find and read text versions of music and the spoken word.
 * See what it takes to audition for the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.
 * Watch an 11 minute highlight video of November 2008 general conference.
 * See News and Events of members around the world.
 * Submit your own story or information about an event or happening in your area.
 * Subscribe to feeds from lds.org for RSS, email, or video.
 * View hundreds of videos in American Sign Language. These include videos of Book of Mormon Gospel Doctrine Lessons, Many hymns from the Hymnbook, Monthly First Presidency and Visiting Teaching Messages, ASL Interpreted Broadcasts of CES firesides, First Presidency Christmas Devotionals, General Conference, World Wide Leadership broadcasts, and others.
 * View many of the Songs from the Children's Songbook in ASL. As the introduction points out:
 * Take a virtual reality tour of many church history sites such as:
 * The Sacred Grove
 * Martyrdom Room in Carthage Jail
 * The Grandin Press
 * The Hill Cumorah
 * The Susquehanna River
 * School of the Prophets room in the Whitney Store
 * Many others..
 * Find the family history center closest to you - anywhere in the World.
 * Search Employment opportunities with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
 * Much, much, more...this barely scratches the surface!

When you find something interesting or valuable on the www.lds.org or www.mormon.org - why not make a screencast and then send a link to that screencast to family and friends who could benefit from seeing or knowing about it. You might even think about putting the screencast on YouTube, or another free repository.

A screencast is better than just a link because it can show how you navigated to find that place on the website. You can also annotate and emphasize the parts you like or think are most important. Your own voice expressing your thoughts and feelings will be the best introduction because it personalizes and gives life to the information.

Cautions

 * For viewing screencasts, the same cautions and dangers exist as viewing any pictures or videos on the internet.
 * For making screencasts you should be careful not to record any personal information you wouldn't want to be broadcast to the world. Make sure your captures don't include things such as your (or others' ) phone number, address, email address, etc. - unless of course you really want anyone or everyone to have access to that information.  After you make your screencast - review it carefully for inadvertent inclusions.

Also, consider the content of the screencast. Is there any sensitive information involved? For instance, let's say that you made a screencast showing your excel calculations for your company's budget. You may want to send the link to certain people in the company - but you probably don't want it to be a publicly accessed file where the screencast resides.

There is a way to password protect your screencast if you store it on screencast.com. If you password protect it, then when you email your recipient with a link to your screencast, you need to send the password too. But remember that passwords can be hacked and email can be forwarded.

Before you publicly publish a screencast or email your friends and family a link to a screencast, it's a good idea to ask yourself: "Could anyone be hurt or harmed from an unintended viewer watching this?"

An Open (screen)Casting Call
Here are two screencasting learning activities you might try. Each activity is broken into parts ordered by level of difficulty:
 * Lights: (easy)
 * Camera: (a little harder)
 * Action! (you're a pro).

Temples
Lights:
 * Find and capture several graphics of LDS Temples from www.lds.org. (If you are having trouble finding the pictures of temples, click here.) Include these graphics in a newsletter, a power point presentation, or an email to a friend.

Camera:
 * Capture the graphic showing the temples in the region where you live. Now annotate it to highlight the ones that you have visited.  Add some brief text to explain what you liked most about one or more. Post the annotated picture on your blog, and "tag" other bloggers to do the same.  (You can find the maps here.  You will need to  "drill down" and select continent, country, region, etc., until you see some red dots and locations of temples.)

Action! Make a screencast to send a friend that includes your testimony of the importance of temple ordinances, and the joy in knowing families can be together forever. To do this you might:
 * Capture a collection of temple pictures.
 * Put the pictures in a power point presentation.
 * Use Jing to record the following:
 * Capture the small version of the power point slides.
 * Click through the pictures while reading excerpts from President Hinckley's Article "Why These Temples?"
 * End with expressing your testimony.
 * Send a link to your screencast to your friend.

I Believe in Christ
Lights: Camera: Action!
 * Capture some graphics of events from the Savior's Life that are mentioned in The Living Christ: The Testimony of the Apostles. A good resource for pictures is the New Testament Gospel Art picture kit
 * Bring up a PDF fileof The Living Christ: The Testimony of the Apostles.
 * Magnify it so that you can read the words.
 * Scroll to a passage that you particularly like. Capture a graphic of it.
 * Annotate it with the highlighting tool.
 * Save it.
 * You might want to do this for several passages.
 * Make a screencast where you read from your annotated Living Christ graphic, and display some of the pictures of Christ that you captured. Or you could make a screencast that gives a tour of the website about the Savior. Consider including the page where apostles bear their special witness of Jesus Christ.
 * End by bearing your own testimony of the Savior.
 * Save and Share the screencast with family or friends.