Screencasting...Bruised, but not Beaten

I'm not afraid of storms, for I'm learning how to sail my ship. --Louisa May Alcott

I sat down this morning to create my first 5 minute screencast using Jing. I figured it would take me a couple hours to get it done and blog about it. Four hours later, I finally have something to show for myself.

Screencasting seems simple enough. Jing captures a video of your screen as you talk through using a web tool. I wanted to show my English 12 students how to set up a wiki using pbworks.com for their independent novel study. How hard can it be?

Well, the tool is easy to use, but screencasting is not, at least not the first time you do it. First, everything has to run smoothly on your computer. For example, I was setting up a demo account, so the activation email had to arrive immediately, and if it didn't, I had to start again. If you misspeak, you have to start again. If you click on the wrong buttons, you have to start again. If you run out of time, you have to start again. And finally, after you finally get it right, if you hit cancel instead of stop, you will pull out your hair, and have to start again.

I discovered five minutes go by really quickly. I had to break my screencast in two in order to show the kids what they needed to know.

This first screencast took about ten attempts:



I am very relieved to report that the second screencast only took me two attempts:



My screencasts are now safely embedded in Moodle for the Grade 12s and I think I need to go have a coffee!

P.S. If you place your mouse over the screencast as it is running, you can click on the tiny yellow computer screen icon at the bottom far right corner, and it will go to full screen mode so you can see it more clearly.