Experimenting With Camtasia Studio 6 – Blog #7

After reading one of the chapters in Boss and Krauss’s book, Reinventing Project-Based Learning, I discovered a screencasting application called Camtasia (Boss & Krauss, pp. 104-105). Screencasting is essentially a recording of computer screen output, combined with your own narration. Consequently, it’s an excellent way to build a tutorial for learning software applications. If you’ve gone through any of the tutorials on the VoiceThread site, that’s what screencasting looks like. I had no idea there was an application that someone could purchase, so when I learned that Camtasia had a 30-day free trial, I went ahead and downloaded it.

I spent the better part of a Saturday experimenting with Camtasia, attempting to create a tutorial for VoiceThread. There are basically two parts to it – the recording of the screen output, and the creation of the final video. First you have to create the recording clips, and that’s the challenging part. I kind of figured that screencasting wouldn’t be as easy as it looked, so I wrote out a basic script to use. It’s actually amazingly simple in setup – all you need is a computer, a microphone (or internal mic), and a quiet spot. Fortunately, you can stop and start, thus creating multiple clips, but I still found myself recreating certain portions several times. I guess there’s an element of “stage fright” when you’re recording yourself, and you end up with many pauses and otherwise awkward moments! Creating the final video was a little bit like MovieMaker in the sense that you have to import the clips and then drag and drop them into a storyboard, where you can add other audio tracks, cut parts of the videos, split videos, etc.

Although it took several hours (and many takes), I finally had what I considered to be a pretty good product for my first stab at it. With Camtasia, you can either narrate the video as you explain how to use the software, or you can create the audio portion separately. I narrated it as I explained the software, but later discovered an entire two-minute segment of audio that I didn’t like. The cool thing was that I could select that two-minute segment, and narrate a new audio clip to go with it that would overwrite the audio segment I didn’t want. Although this ended up being a bit louder, I was satisfied with the new audio and other than deleting some video pieces here and there, didn’t do much other editing.

Once my 30-day trial is complete, I’m seriously considering using some of my media budget funds to purchase the Camtasia application for use in my school. It’s $300, but well worth the cost. One of our teachers’ biggest reasons for not implementing technology is the lack of time it takes to learn it. By creating some tutorials that teachers can go through fairly quickly (my VoiceThread tutorial was only 20-25 minutes in length), when they have the time, I hope to eliminate that excuse and introduce new applications to any teacher who’s willing to give them a try.