E-learning Curve Blog at Edublogs

Getting right back to basics here, but what a good way to start the new year! So, if you’re new to e-learning courseware development, read on…

Ever wondered how to capture demos for delivery online ?

I generally use two pieces of software to capture high-quality, post-produced demos. In this blog entry, I’ll give you a bit of background on Camtasia Studio, and in the next blog post I’ll discuss Adobe Captivate.

Camtasia Studio is a screen video capture program for Microsoft Windows, published by TechSmith. It is a screen-recording application that allows users to record almost anything on a computer screen, including application demonstrations and PowerPoint presentations. Users are able to use their own computers to demonstrate some aspect of motion-based content.

The presenter defines the area of the screen or the window to be captured before recording begins; it is also possible to capture the entire screen area.

Recording
Once Camtasia’s recording mode is activated, the presenter carries out all steps of the demonstration, in sequence. It is possible to move between applications without interrupting the recording process. The presenter can pause or stop recording at any time – at which point the software renders the input that has been captured – as well as apply user-defined settings, such as when and how to display the cursor.

Post-production
Once the presentation has been captured, the presenter is able to revise it by integrating multiple recordings, if required (and this is typically the case on longer-form demos and course learning objects). In addition, the presenter can dub in a voice-over narration, sound effects, as well as music onto the presentation. Camtasia also allows audio recording while screen-capturing is in progress, so the presenter can narrate the demonstration as it is carried out. Most presenters, however, prefer to wait until they have finished the screen capture, and then record the narration from a script as the application is playing back the recorded capture.

Deployment
The application  allows files to be stored in its own proprietary *.CAMREC format, which is only readable by Camtasia itself; this format allows for quite  small file sizes, even for longer presentations. Much more useful is that Camtasia also allows the generated video stream to be exported to common video formats which can be read by most computers, even if the Camtasia software is not installed, such as Flash FLV & SWF, Windows WMV and MPEG-4. MP3 audio and podcast files may also be generated.

Uses
Once exported, content is easily distributed to a wide audience; highly compressed files, such as files encoded in the FLV format are especially suitable for distribution online via platforms like Adobe Connect.

Instructional Uses

Camtasia is popular among instructors and learners because presentations are easy to produce and distribute, saving instructors the time to repeat presentations many times, especially in courses that teach a certain application or computing environment. Many learners appreciate the ease with which Camtasia-produced presentations can be viewed, especially presentations that are embedded into a web page and are shown in the client browser window.

Criticisms
One of Camtasia’s primary shortcomings is its long rendering times and excessive consumption of system resources during production. Output file generation times can be improved by using newer hardware, such as a dual processor system, as well as an increased amount of RAM.

Next Time: Captivate

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