Thing 38 -- Screencasting

Screencasting is fun and I can see how it could be addictive, especially to former teachers such as myself. I looked at a few different screencasting tools--Jing and Skitch. I tried to download Jing, but it seemed to take forever and I was anxious to get on to the screencasting after I got a feel for what it was. I looked at Skitch, but it was more about copying your screen to a blog or facebook or whatever. I finally settled on Screen-cast-o-matic. It was extremely easy to record--I didn't add any audio because I don't have a mic. All I did was place the screen square around the ECRL catalog and place a hold. I redid it a few times because of some glitches (no holds allowed on this material, already have a hold on this material), but I think it turned out fine. It is 1 minute and 31 seconds long. It was very easy to make, but as usual I had more trouble trying to figure out how to get it onto my blog. I did end up putting a link to my screencast on my blog, but the whole screencast isn't there. I hope that is good enough. It is two clicks to get to the screencast rather than right on the blog, like my slideshow. Not sure if I know how to put it directly onto the blog. I can see lots of uses for screencasts on a library interactive webpage--we get numerous questions about how to place holds or use the databases. This is a perfect tool for showing people how to use library resources.