Kerry – NetworkEd UBC

Screencasts: It’s not Hollywood, but it’s useful

Screencasting is the art of turning what you see on your computer screen into a video. This technology allows you to stop explaining things in text (which is sometimes appropriate and sometimes static and boring.) They’re easy to make and can be used to create YouTube videos, tutorials, and class presentations.

Here’s one that NetworkEd UBC made about…NetworkEd UBC (we’re into self-promotion)

There are lots of different free screencast programs, below are just some of them:

Jing is one of the most ubiquitous programs out there. People love it because they walk you through the process and it’s easy to add graphics like text bubbles and arrows to your screencast. Sharing your screencast is really easy too! Screencasts five minutes or less are free.
CamStudio has a lot of features for free software including recording with audio and adding captions
Screencast-O-Matic gives your up to 15 minutes free recording time. It’s one of the easiest technologies for beginners. You don’t have to download anything; instead you just click a button to start recording.

These technologies make screencasting easy, but here are some tips for making your screencast stand out from the rest:

Create a storyboard: whether your video is long or short, you should know what you’re going to do and when. Taking some pen and paper and sketching out the basic outline of your presentation can be really helpful
Think about who you intend to see the video and what you want them to get from it. This should help narrow your focus and keep you on track.
Make a script for recording your audio: you won’t forget important details and you won’t have every fifth word be an ummmmmmmmm or a weeeeeeeeeeelllllllll. Also, use a microphone and speak slowly and clearly
Intentional background music is much nicer than accidental background noises (like the phone ringing or the dog barking!)

So go forth and create!

Dropbox 101

Computers, computers, everywhere so where’s my darn file?

Excuse the language.

Dropbox is a free service that allows you, so long as your computer is logged on to the internet, to access your files from any computer. There’s three main things that make Dropbox a fantastic tool:

Access your files anywhere with internet
Invite friends to share and edit documents – updates automatically with no old versions floating aroun
Back up your files

So how does Dropbox work?

Download Dropbox and install it on your computer

Any documents that you store in the Dropbox folder will be automatically synced

You can create online Dropbox folders, store your documents there, and invite friends to share a folder (group project anyone?)

Automatically synced???

When you’re using Dropbox your file exists in two places. It exists on the hard drive of your computer and it exists in ‘the cloud’ (i.e. on the internet.) So now you have a choice to make. You create a document called ‘Most delicious foods’ and store it in your Dropbox folder. This means that when the file gets edited, it changes in both places – online and in your folder. So if I want to add oatmeal to the ‘Most delicious foods’ list – what, some of us are of Scottish heritage – I would only have to edit the file in my Dropbox folder and the version stored on the cloud would be automatically changed. If I had invited someone else to have access to the folder in which I was storing my delicious food list, the version they had in the Dropbox folder on their computer would also have changed.

This is great if you are doing lots of editing and don’t want tons of multiple versions of a document floating around. Dropbox will keep old saved versions of your document for 30 days. If you want to be incredibly sure that older versions of your document stay around, you can keep them stored outside your Dropbox folder (just on a regualr folder on your computer.) You can still upload it and let other people see and edit it, but the version on your computer and the version on the internet will not automatically synch up.

So that’s how dropbox works. Back to those big advantages:

Access your files from anywhere: since you’ve got the documents on the internet, you can just log onto your account and look at them

You can invite friends to a folder: They can edit and add mushrooms as a delicious food (because your friends are gross that way) and it will automatically appear on your version of the document

Back up your files: Has your computer ever crashed and you’ve lost all your files? Well, I guess you don’t use Dropbox. Because the files that are stored online can just be re-downloaded once you’re able to get your computer to boot up again.