Christine Martell has been teaching herself how to screencast and completed her first screencast. What's really impressive is that it made Screencast of the Week over at TechSmith, the makers of the software.
Christine was using some of the wonderful how-to videos on the TechSmith site (and I also think my screencasting primer too). The Chipmunks reference is because she encountered a bug with the software that made her recording sound like the Alvin and Chipmunks. It got in her way until she found the software update.
She comments:
The are limitations of e-learning that focus on telling me how things should work rather than how to think it through when they don’t.
This is an issue that I have struggled with as a technology trainer for the past 15 years. I'm remembering back to some trainings I had to do for arts educators in the mid-1990s and had to teach some software. What I used to do was show the how things should work method first. Then I would do it again, but intentionally make a common mistake -- but I wouldn't tell them I was doing it on purpose. And when the error message appeared or it didn't work as it did the first time, I would ask the class to brainstorm what was happening and why. The third demo was sort of a game. I would go through the steps, intentionally making a mistake. My demo would be silent - no narrative. But this time, I told the class I was going to make a mistake and ask them to shout out when I made the mistake and what it was. (It would be different mistake from the second time and the winner would get a candy bar.)
Maybe that would be an interesting add-on to a screencast after you've shown them the right way.
Beth,
I used your great screencast primer, and watched every screencast instruction I could find. I found a long list of things that could potentially have been wrong. It was totally overwhelming. And I kept trying over and over to fix things like the microphone, the way I was speaking, the compression types, restarting the computer.
Once the problem was fixed, I had practiced so much making chipmunk movies I was able to make your screencast in two tries. So in the long run it all worked.
I wished I had been in one of your classes. I'd have a whole pile of candy bars by now. I think this is going to become more critical as we move training to more support systems delivered by technology. I don't see much online training that has figured out how to deliver those adjustments we make to learners in the moment in the classroom.
Posted by: Christine Martell | January 14, 2008 at 02:18 PM
Christine:
It took many hours of learning to master Camtasia. I went through the exact same experience. I read the books, watched the video, asked questions, and kept trying .. and soon I was able to create screencasts a lot more efficiently.
Posted by: Beth | January 14, 2008 at 04:54 PM
Great post Beth!
The whole "chipmunk" thing had me stumped for a couple of days but I figured it out and did a QuickTip video for my members that covers the problem and provides the fix. Maybe of use to your readers as well. Here it is:
http://screencastprofits.com/quicktips/alvin
I love your blog and keep up the great work!
Lon Naylor
Posted by: Lon Naylor | January 26, 2008 at 09:32 AM