Edition

Educator Resources

The big news this month is the release of Camtasia Studio 5.1. It's a free update for a lot of users and has some nice features, so be sure to check it out if you haven't already.

Instructor Jean Kent told me a great story in our interview that got me thinking... Jean decided in 2006 to produce a weekly podcast so students in her online class would have another way, besides text, to get course information like announcements, tips, and due dates.

She thought it would help students feel more connected to her, too.

Having a deaf student in the class at the time, Jean provided a transcript along with the audio file.

But things didn't work out exactly as planned. Once the students discovered the transcript, some stopped listening to the audio. "At first I felt disappointed about that but then quickly realized that as long as they were getting the information, that was all I cared about," she said.

As a consumer of information, I think choice is fantastic. Give me a video, sure, but let me quickly scan a transcript, too...or step through a written tutorial if I happen to be on dial-up. But it's also true that each medium results in a different kind of experience.

What about you...do you think giving learners a lot of choice is a good thing? How far is too far? Do you hear instructors worry about giving so much choice that, say, students no longer feel the need to show up to class? We'd love to hear what you think!

Daniel Foster
Newsletter Editor

Have you heard the news? An update to Camtasia Studio was just released! Watch the video to see it for yourself! The update includes things like new callout styles, a third audio track, iPhone preset, ExpressShow for FLV videos, and a rebuilt, cooler-than-ever Camtasia Theater. Read the details.

Watch video | Upgrade now

Of course, being a "dot-one" release, you'll also get a lot of important bug fixes and small enhancements.

The update is free if you own a license to version 5.0 or greater. Running an older version? Now's a great time to buy the upgrade for half the price of a new installation.

The easiest way to upgrade is to open Camtasia Studio and click Help > Check for Upgrade. You can also use our online Upgrade Center.

Not only has Jean Kent become proficient at using Camtasia Studio in her own teaching at Seattle Community College...she also shares that knowledge with other instructors by giving Camtasia workshops around Washington State.

Read on to learn four different ways Jean is using Camtasia Studio to help students succeed in her online course: IT 111 Internet & Web Authoring.

#1 - Orientation video lays groundwork for success

Six months ago, Jean created an online orientation video that students have to watch before they start the online class. The video, which is split up into logical chunks, runs a little over 30 minutes and addresses the same topics you'd normally cover on the first day of class: welcome, introduction, expectations, tools and resources, housekeeping issues.

"I believe the online orientation will help students understand how the class works and what will be required of them during the quarter. This improves their chance for success," said Jean.

#2 - Tutorials build technical skills early

The learning curve during the first few weeks of IT 111 can be sharp for many students. They need to learn how to use the required software, code Web pages, and get around in the virtual classroom. To help students through the curve, Jean supplements her course materials with video tutorials produced using Camtasia Studio.

"I had a good sense from teaching the class face-to-face which course-related tasks were the most difficult and these were the projects I worked on first," she said. She also creates tutorials in response to student requests.

A great example is Jean's tutorial on using Picasa, which is divided into sections so students can skip over what they already know. "The Camtasia Theater menu works really well for this type of delivery," Jean reports.

#3 - Weekly PowerPoint lecture introduces new concepts

This semester, Jean is experimenting with posting PowerPoint lectures as videos, too! For each chapter in the textbook, she introduces the most important new concepts with a video....like this one.

#4 - Visual feedback: more effective for students, instructor

Jean often uses Camtasia Studio to give feedback on homework assignments. For a Web coding project, she can record a short movie that shows a student's coding errors and provides suggestions for fixing them. "Students love getting feedback this way and I think it works much, much better than sending an email message," she said.

Plus these videos can be reused for future classes...especially when they show how to avoid a common pitfall like using ampersand incorrectly.

How does she do it? A note on process...

For most of her videos, Jean starts with a rough storyboard, then writes a script. "The time spent planning means that the recording usually goes well and I don't have to do too much editing," she said.

Depending on the complexity of the topic, a five-minute video takes her from 30-60 minutes to complete. "But my homework feedback movies are produced on-the-fly," she noted.

Jean gathers student feedback on her videos via anonymous surveys. She reports that students are especially enthusiastic about them early in the quarter. This student comment is typical, "I...found them extremely helpful. I think you should continue using this type of material."

Brackets are handy for clearly indicating chunks of information...like these proposed changes to my "Don't Think Twice, It's Alright" playlist.

Everyone seems to have an iPhone or iPod Touch these days. Using the brand-new version of Camtasia Studio, you can produce videos that look fantastic on these devices. That means learners can view and review your content anywhere: on a bus, at the library, while cramming for exams. Or while sitting at their desk...with the mobile device substituting as a second monitor!

See how to produce your video for iPhone

This 3-minute video tutorial shows how to use the new iPhone production preset within Camtasia Studio to achieve just the right dimensions and video format for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

I also show how to use SmartFocus to zoom in on the action, so all the details are preserved—even on small screens.

It's really quite easy, but you will need to update to Camtasia Studio 5.1 if you haven't already.

If you have Camtasia Studio...you also have Camtasia Theater. Theater makes it simple to build a Web "menu" for your videos. So you can create a playlist of videos that play through in a certain order...while viewers can still jump to the content they want. You don't need to know any HTML...just drag and drop video files into Theater, move them around, and customize the colors and styles if you please.

Bundle your videos with Theater

Watch this video that Ryan and I created to see how...

(To get the rebuilt Theater, you'll need to update to Camtasia Studio 5.1. And stay tuned for more videos in this series that will show how to do other cool things with Theater...)