Thing 38: Screencasting

I put this thing off because I was completely intimidated by it. When I was reading about screencasting, I somehow couldn't get my mind around it. Then, I made a silly little screencast on Screencast-O-Matic . I attempted to show how to add books that you want to read to your Visual Bookshelf on Facebook and mark them as read when you're through. Here is the link:

http://www.screencast-o-matic.com/watch/cQ1Voje9n

It was much easier to actually do than read about. Some things that I will remember and try to improve for next time:

1. I chose not to do audio because I hate the sound of my voice, but I think that it would be much easier to follow with a narrative.
2. The waiting time between clicking and opening a new page took a long time. Next time, I will pause while the page loads.
3. Probably a little outline of my intended steps prepared ahead of time would make my clicking less awkward.

In fact, I think I'll do another screencast later this week with the above changes.
I think that screencasting will be super helpful to libraries in doing tutorials on catalog searching, databases, library web pages on Facebook or Flickr, etc.
Update 6/3: I made a new screencast, to try and do a better job. Here it is at http://www.screencast-o-matic.com/watch/cQ1el8eRH
It is to find themed books for storytime on NoveList. I tried and failed to use the microphone. I even checked my computer setting as instructed, and all seemed well, but it failed to record. So, we have no sound. This time around though, I added pop-up notes to make things clearer. I wrote down my steps ahead of time, so I hope the mousing is less jerky. I think with practice you could make pretty nice tutorials.