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[kohelet]

Hello, all.  I've searched over the past year's topics here and couldn't find a discussion of this, and I'm guessing anything prior to that might be outdated, so ...

Any suggestions for a super easy way to record video of my computer screen and audio of me talking about it?  For example, I'd like to be able to demonstrate and narrate some analysis in SPSS and Excel.  I'm looking for a nice, one-step process.  What I've done before involved starting making a bunch of screenshots, putting them in a PowerPoint presentation, adding narration (a huge hassle itself), and then using iSpring to convert it to a flash video.  That was a couple of years ago, so I'm guessing there's an easier way now.

... Oh, and the subject line's parenthetical question mark: Maybe there are ways to do this online?  Or maybe there's cool new hardware I can justify buying? We have some smartboards on campus--any cool options with those?  (I'll talk to our teaching technology people, too, but in the past, I've had to let *them* know about the easy options to the super expensive software that can only be used in their lab.)

[kohelet]

... Some googling reminded me that Jing has been recommended to me.  It does look very useful, but I think I'd need longer than 5 minutes, and I'm also paranoid about not having things on my hard drive (which, ironically I guess, I back up to the cloud).  I definitely want whatever I create to be available for indefinite re-use.

[cc_alan]

Camtasia.

Alan

[kohelet]

Yes, we do have Camtasia, but only licenses for machines in our teaching center's computer lab.  I've seen colleagues, especially adjuncts, in there using it, having to "lecture" right there in the lab.  They're less timid than me!  I guess I am looking for something I can do on my own computer and in my own office.  I see that buying my own license would be $299, which I don't think I can get away with.

While looking at that, though, I learned the term "screencast" (which I'm ashamed not to have already known, but, then again, neither does my browser's spellcheck), which took me to a Wikipedia entry comparing various screencasting software options:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_screencasting_software

I'll look around for reviews of some of the open source options, but if anyone already has one to recommend, I'd be happy to hear it.

[cc_alan]

Yes, we do have Camtasia, but only licenses for machines in our teaching center's computer lab.  I've seen colleagues, especially adjuncts, in there using it, having to "lecture" right there in the lab.  They're less timid than me!  I guess I am looking for something I can do on my own computer and in my own office.  I see that buying my own license would be $299, which I don't think I can get away with.

Academic pricing is a bit less than that.

(Just a happy user, not a shareholder.)

Alan

[infopri]

Yes, we do have Camtasia, but only licenses for machines in our teaching center's computer lab.  I've seen colleagues, especially adjuncts, in there using it, having to "lecture" right there in the lab.  They're less timid than me!  I guess I am looking for something I can do on my own computer and in my own office.  I see that buying my own license would be $299, which I don't think I can get away with.

Academic pricing is a bit less than that.

(Just a happy user, not a shareholder.)

Alan

Yup, chime to everything alan said.  Our Camtasia license enabled me to put Camtasia on my own laptop, which then enabled me to record my lectures/demonstrations/etc. in the privacy of my home. 

Camtasia does exactly what you want it to do.  You click on the "record" button, and, until you click "pause recording" or "stop recording," Camtasia will record (a) everything on your screen (including your various movements with the cursor, moves from one web page to another, switches from one active window to another, etc.), and (b) anything you say (and any ambient noise, another reason you don't want to be in a computer lab).  After you're finished recording, Camtasia will enable you to edit both the visual and the sound.  You can splice two or more clips, insert one inside the other, snip a section out--whatever you need to do.

If your campus doesn't have a license that enables you to put the program on your individual machines (vs. machines in a lab), gather your colleagues together and do what it takes to get your administration and IT people to get a better license.  They're available, and if my school has one it's probably not ridiculously expensive (with the educational discount).

Good luck!

[kohelet]

Thanks, both of you.  Infopri, I will definitely check about the license issue.  I haven't looked into it for two or there years, so things may very well have changed since then.  If I do end up trying an open source option, I'll be sure to report on it.

[lohai0]

I think we use Elluminate for this.

[_touchedbyanoodle_]

Screencast-o-matic.com. You'll love it. It's free, no download required, and you can upload the video onto their server. They have a how-to video on their home page, but if you have any questions after you try it, feel free to PM me.

I also use Jing, Tegrity, Elluminate, and Camtasia. Screencast-o-matic wins the easy-peasy award, hands down.

[daniel_von_flanagan]

Blueberry Flashback Express.  I finally went to the pro version for the extra editing features, but the free version is pretty full-featured. - DvF

[zharkov]

If you have a Mac, then the built in QuickTime X software should do nicely.

I recall making QuickTime training videos about 10 years ago when I worked in industry, which were  -- believe it or not -- fallbacks for times when the network was down.  (When the network was up, we'd use real time web connections when we did training.)

 

[octoprof]

I use camtasia and a tablet PC (because I want to record my writing of the problem as I go just as I would in class). I've used it on a non-tablet PC with Excel and powerpoint and a few other things.

Camtasia has a 30 day free trial and it's worth trying. I edit my recordings to remove flubs and bloopers and it's easy to use once you get the hang of it.

I also use a microphone/headphone combination (with most laptops the internal microphone isn't the best quality. I spent about $40 on the headphone with mic.

If you want to see an example of one of these recordings (exciting stuff, my subject!) feel free to PM me for a URL.