Sunday, April 28, 2013

Screencasts: A great teaching tool



I fell in love with screencasts two years ago. I was taking a introductory journalism class that was meant to teach students how to use several programs in Adobe Suite. At the time, the school had access to a website called Lynda.com where students could go online, select a video and learn how to use the program through screencast tutorials. It was a blast to use and I learned so much more going through the videos at my own pace than I would have had I been expected to pay attention to a teacher during labs. 

The screencast made learning new programs easier because I could watch exactly how they were doing things and I could pause and go back if I didn’t understand something. It made learning new programs less complicated and I got a lot out of the class because of that. 

Technical companies can use screencasts to create tutorials on a variety of subjects on their websites. This tool can be used as a way to introduce new users to programs, teach users how to use them and aid in troubleshooting issues.  There are negatives though. Screencasts can be time consuming to watch and don’t have the portability other learning tools can have.
Good luck creating your screencasts!
For tips on how to create a screencast, visit Smashing Magazine’s Screencasting: How To Start, Tools and Guidelines.

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