LIBR 246-12: Web 2.0 and Social Networking Tools (Fall 2008)

This week's exercise will give you experience creating an instructional screencast.

1. Create a screencast demonstrating for your classmates the use of one of your favorite social software sites (as if we'd never used it before). For PC users, FreeScreencast.com, uTipu, and CamStudio are good free options for screencasting (FreeScreencast.com and uTipu can also host your video). You can get 30-day trial copies of Camtasia 5 and Captivate 3. If you have a Mac, you could use Jing (which is free) or the free tial version of iShowU (movies will contain a watermark if you use the demo version). If you have Leopard installed, you can get a trial copy of ScreenFlow (which will also contain a watermark). One other web-based (no download) option that works with Mac and PC (and probably Linux as well) is Flowgram. I have a few invites to Flowgram (not enough for the whole class), so email me for one if you're on Linux or if you're having trouble downloading and installing other tools.

2. Upload your finished video to our course page in blip.tv (see assignment questions forum for instructions) or if you used a site where you can host your screencast, just provide a link to the screencast in your blog post this week. If you use Captivate or Jing to create your screencast (or if you export your file as an .swf), you will need to host it at screencast.com (you can get a free account there).