LIBR 246-04/13 Web 2.0 (Spring 2010)

Meredeith mentioned this in response to another post, and I must say that I always prefer reading a transcript of a screencast, too. I am a very fast reader, and I learn better that way, as well, so I'm always thankful for casts that provide captions or a transcript.

Speaking of, I was experimenting with some of YouTube's addon features yesterday (you'll see I experimented with its sticky notes at several points)--when I had the closed captioning turned on, the text that was deciphered from my narration was hilarious! Here are a few of my favorites:

I decided to see if I could embed my screencast in a blog entry.

I like the approach that Melissa Wong, the instructor for my Library 210 Reference & Information Services class, takes in incorporating screencasts into her lessons. Her virtual lectures on Angel consist of a page of instructional text incorporating links to databases, charts in PDF format, quizzes, and short screencasts. She knows how to choose the correct format for a given piece of information.

What are the pros and cons of screencast tutorials versus static HTML tutorials?

Screencast tutorials can be really fun to make and some librarians might get a little over eager once they learn how easy it is, but it's really important to consider the pros and cons before going forward.

I've been spending the weekend enjoying viewing your screencasts, so it's only fair that I share a few of the ones I've created for work. I've recently changed my approach to creating screencasts, breaking even short (<5 minutes) screencasts down into individual topics.

Lisa, in one of her blog posts this week, made some good criticisms of bad marketing and instructional videos from academic libraries. UCLA and Brown are academic heavyweights among American universities, but I guess that doesn't mean they're going to produce high quality content in everything they do; their videos are not very professional, and that lack of quality and professionalism undercuts their message.

Since I'm being so outspoken on this issue--and since I'm about to make my own screencast, which invariably will commit some sins of screencasting--I thought I'd address the question: what are some things that libraries should try to avoid when creating a screencast? I've already been critical of ill-fated attempts at humor. You know, I think it's these misguided attempts at being funny or casting ourselves as one of "them" that leads some students to find it creepy when libraries and librarians branch out into social networks.

Screencasting has a lot of benefits for providing tutorials that cannot be done using just text on a website or on paper.    First, it is a huge benefit for auditory and visual learners.

I found this wonderful blog by WordPress author Michael Pick, titled "Screencasting Resources". It includes introductions to screencasting, demos, techniques, resource for screencasting on Mac, comprehensive comparison of screencasting applications, also screencasts to learn how to do screencasts.