Two free products that we use for screencasting in the E-Learning Unit are Jing (from Techsmith) and Screenr (from Articulate), and though they are very basic, they may be suitable for your needs.

Both Jing and Screenr have the capability to record a specified area of your screen for up to 5 minutes, and both allow you to add  audio using a microphone. You can upgrade both products to a Pro version – which opens up several additional features for each.

Jing:

I’ve been using Jing for a long time to do my screencasts, and what I like about it is that the tool sits discreetly at the top of my screen and allows me to start recording at any moment by just clicking a button. It also offers a very convenient way to capture still images (screenshots) – and provides drawing tools to annotate your images. Here is an example of an image captured with Jing:

To use Jing you need to download and install the software to your machine from the Jing website at http://www.techsmith.com/jing/

It only takes a few minutes, and you will be prompted to register. Registering gives you an account on screencast.com – which gives free online media storage (up to 2mb) and is also where your screencasts will be hosted.

To make a recording, you simply click on the Jing sun icon from the top of your screen and then select the area that you would like to capture. Click on either the ‘Capture image’ or ‘Capture video’ button. When capturing a video, you will receive a countdown before you begin. You can pause your recording or when finished just click the stop button.

Jing recordings are private by default – and only those who know the URL to your screencast will be able to view it. You can choose to password protect your screencasts, or make them publicly available. You can also embed the video onto your website.

Here is a sample embedded Jing recording:
 

 
Screenr:

I recently started using screenr and found it very useful to produce screencasts as well. One advantage of Screenr over Jing is that it is web-based and there is no need to download and install anything to your machine. You can log into the Screenr website with your Twitter, Facebook, Google or Yahoo account in order to publish your recordings.

Similar to Jing, you select the area of the screen you wish to record, and when finished, click the done button. You will then be able to publish the video and share it via various options. You can post the video directly to twitter or facebook, or you can embed it in your blog or website.

Here is a sample Screenr recording:
 

 
I’ve put together a summary comparison chart of Jing and Screenr to help you decide which tool is better for you.

Jing Advantages:

1. No need for internet connection to record or capture images
2. Record up to 5 minutes of audio and screen (video recording available with Pro version)
3. Produces Flash SWF files (Mp4 files available with Pro version)
4. 2GB free storage space on Screencast.com
5. Private by default, but can make recording password protected, or publicly available
6. Also capture screenshots and use tools provided for annotation
7. Embed screencast or screenshots onto webpage
8. Share on Twitter or Facebook (YouTube upload button available with Pro account)
9. Price: FREE; Pro US $14.95 per year

Screenr Advantages:

1. Web-Based; no need to install anything
2. Record up to 5 minutes of audio and screen
3. Produces MP4 files
4. No storage limits
5. Share instantly on Twitter or Facebook
6. Upload directly to YouTube
7. Download an Mp4 copy of file to computer
8. Easily get embed code to embed onto website
9. Price: FREE; Pro from US $19 per month

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• Automatic subscription through web browser
• Manual Subscription

Automatic subscription through a web browser

Manual subscription

I think Screencast comes into its own when combined with Jing. Being able to rapidly and easily record a video of what’s happening on your screen and upload it with one button to your Screencast account is very very useful. From there you just need to distribute the video which you can do by emailing the URL to whomever, linking to it from a website or embedding the HTML, which is generated by Screencast, into a webpage or VLE course area.

However, Screencast is not just limited to Jing. You can upload other media files into it which presents, at least a temporary and low-level but immediate, solution to the problem of storage. Where to put files is the big problem that our staff encounter with online video. We usually suggest YouTube but some staff have issues with the public availability; which is reasonable. Screencast movies are, by the very nature of their being available to share, technically public but do not have the massive search engine of Google indexing their location.

Screencast also provides a few other functions:

• Customized Templates
• Desktop Uploader
• RSS Feeds so your users can subscribe to your media
• MediaRoll widget for blogs

So what does it do? It’s a free application that works as an excellent screen recorder; either video or a still image. It sits in a very tidy manner at the very top of your screen like so:

When you click on the unobtrusive circle you given the option to Capture or look at your History. The History option will bring up your Library; Jing will record every capture you’ve made and its current location. The second point there, location, is important… and we’ll get back to that in a bit.

The capture software gives you the option of a still image or video. The video is a fairly basic recorder but often-times that’s all you need. It will produce something like what you can link to below (note that all the images and videos in this post are recorded using Jing and hosted by Screencast… WordPress unfortunately will not accept embedded video from Jing so just click to follow the link instead). What I’ve recorded is a brief run-through of the annotation tools available for a still image. In this example, let’s say I’m giving an introduction to the tools in Photoshop. Audio can be included but I’ve decided not to.

Click here to see an example of Jing video on the screencast website

Lastly, I mentioned how important the location was to note. This is, in my opinion, where Jing excels. The biggest issue we find people have with online video is not how to record but where it goes. Jing will allow you to save any capture locally (the swf video comes with a player built into the file) but it will also upload any files to Techsmiths free hosting service called Screencast. You can also use it to FTP to any site or to upload to Flickr or YouTube. All very very useful. The free hosting service has a limit of 2GB of space and 2GB bandwith p/m usage but that’s more than enough for you to start making a library of short rough-and-ready content for your learners.

Lastly it also publishes a paragraph of HTML so you easily embed content into another location, for example your VLE course area.

• A lecturer from the University of Westminster lecturer winning an award for his online teacher training videos
• An announcement of the re-branding of TASI to JISC Digital Media
• A new online archive of British Cartoons
• A report on student experiences of technology

JISC/Times Higher Innovation in ICT Award Winner

Russell Stannard from the University of Westminster won the JISC/Times Higher aware for ‘Innovation in ICT’ for his online teacher training videos (Teacher Training Videos). The teacher training videos are aimed at helping teachers to learn about how to use various technologies in their teaching. These include training on desktop applications such as Powerpoint, Photoshop and Word and web 2.0 tools such as Delicious and Flickr. Despite my obvious interest in these training materials for what they are there’s a number of other interesting points that come out of the article. Russell has produced these videos using Camtasia, a piece of software that we in the DELU are very fond of ourselves so it’s a useful case study of what is possible using Camtasia. Also, Russell has published some information about using this type of technology to provide audio-visual feedback to students. This is something that we’re seeing increasing interest in around the College and indeed some staff are already using alternative mechanisms for providing feedback to students such as screencasting (though not necessarily using Camtasia) and just audio feedback alone. There are also more official projects in progress around this area such as the ‘Sounds Good’ project (again JISC funded), looking at the use of audio feedback. It would be useful to know more about this, in particular how using these types of feedback mecahnism has been received by students.

Links:
JISC/Higher Education Award article in JISC Inform online
Teacher Training Videos Website
Sounds Good Project

TASI rebrands as JISC Digital Media

This is basically just a small announcement in JISC Inform but it made me remember what a fantastic resource this is. The service used to be known as the Technical Advisory Service for Images (TASI) and originally provided resources and advice on the use of still images in education. It began to widen its view and take in moving images and audio and I assume this is what has lead to its re-branding. The website is a total wealth of information and resources on still and moving images and sound. We’re seeing a real increase in the number of people wanting to use multimedia resources in their teaching and many of the queries that we get from staff could be dealt with using some of the resources on the JISC Digital Media website. A good example is the Choosing a Digital Video Filetype article. We get asked questions about filetypes a lot. As well as the website, they also have a helpline which is free to those working in higher education and they run a variety of training courses (these are not free).

Link: JISC Digital Media website

A searchable century of satire

This article describes the new JISC sponsored British Cartoon Archive. This currently features ’120,000 cartoons from 250 leading artists’ including a couple close to my heart, Andy Capp and Giles. The images can be searched in a variety of ways, cartoonist, publication, date, name or subject. Although the images are freely viewable in the archive they are not copyright free, so they can only be printed for private research (not for study packs) and they cannot be re-used online (e.g. put in a CE6 course area) without obtaining specific permission. An interesting resource.

Link: The British Cartoon Archive

Improving the student experience

‘Improving the student experience’ describes the opening of the JISC Student Experiences of Technology campaign. This seemed particularly pertinent to me as I attended our own annual Queen Mary Student Experience Seminar earlier this week which was focussed especially on online resources. The article here largely provides extracts from the ‘Digital Student’ supplement that was published in the Guardian a while back which I had actually already read but it should be worth keeping an eye on what else comes out of the JISC campaign as it has great relevance to what is going on in the College at the moment.

Links:
JISC Student Experiences of Technology Campaign
The Digital Student supplement published by The Guardian.

^[1] JISC Inform is a publication produced by the Joint Information Systems Committee to raise awareness of the use of information and communications technology to support further and higher education in the UK. JISC Inform can also be found online.