Screencasts are a great resource, now!
Although creating my screencast took several hours, I am optimistic about this as a resource that will really make an impact in librarianship and information services. Customers at my public library really appreciate when I come to their internet workstation to help them with the computer, and I think this is because many people are visual learners. Often times verbal explanations get lost, confused, or distorted, especially when it comes to using technology. However, showing customers how to complete a task on the computer by standing next to them and letting them control the mouse and keyboard while you are verbally guiding them seems to work really well. To me, screencasts are kind of like stand-in librarians because they offer the combination of visual and audio guides.
After helping my mom learn some basic skills in Microsoft Word over the weekend, it became clear to me how unhelpful verbal explanations of computer skills can be. Imagine describing to a customer how to open a picture from a CD with words, and then imagine how much easier it is to show them, or walk them through it visually. This is the main reason why I think screencasts can be such a great resource, right this minute (not in 5 years) for library users.
The only part about screencasting that needs to be worked out is, like I mentioned last week, how we can get the screencasts to the people. Last week I suggested some sort of information module at the entrance of a library that has casts already loaded, ready to play. This way customers can literally walk up to the computer station and click start. Otherwise the use of screencasts will be limited to customers who already know how to use the internet and can download a screencast confidantly.
As for Camtasia, once I got in the rhythym it was pretty straightforward. There are some wrinkles that may be ironed out with more experience, but for a first-timer it is pretty cool. The one time I got frustrated was when I was recording my voice narration and the video was being jumpy and cutting sections out. This made it difficult to time the audio correctly. With the audio, there were a few loud bumps during the recording which I couldn't figure out how to remove, although I found them on the audio track and I bet with more practice I can learn how to zoom in and naturalize the levels (?).
Overall, I had an unexpectedly good time, and may very well use this resource again in the future (although my Camtasia subscription only lasts for a month...)
My Screencast: Using Wikipedia: An Introduction
