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2010 - Year of the Screencast

Posted by Karla Youngs on Thursday 23 December 2010
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My final blog of the year

2010 was all about screencasting for me, and full of opportunities to develop my understanding of this wide-ranging discipline while practising, teaching and writing about screencasting. Screencasting is the subject of much attention in teaching and learning at the moment, with people from all areas of the education ecosystem realising its potential, and noticing a new-found ease of production and delivery, parallel to the exponential rise of video on the web.

As a Technical Support Officer for Sound, my interest in screencasting evolved as a natural progression from audio podcasting, as the voice-over is one of its key elements, and in that sense screencasts share as much, if not more more in common with audio podcasts and presentation as they do with video recordings. However my key personal milestone for the year was not technical in nature.

It was rather the opportunity to learn about the design and planning of screencasts to maximise their effectiveness, and all the different tasks and environments they can address; this awareness came both through talking and working with trainers and educators, focusing on their learning goals, and also through analysing my own screencasts and trying to identify their strengths and weaknesses. The difference between a well-conceived and planned screencast and a slapdash or off-the-cuff one is amazing, and as a result of this new approach I hope my screencasts are more focused, more engaging and more consistent in style and quality.

Over the summer I worked on a screencasting project with the Blackboard Support team at the University of Bristol (case study to come early in 2011 - watch this space!) and over the year I also developed the workflow, tools and standards for our own screencasting materials, as well as offering advice to numerous people making screencasts for all sorts of purposes. The Screencasting Workshop which I have since developed has been a popular course, with attendees from a wide range of HE and FE institutions and roles, including a particularly successful onsite workshop at the Open University, and we have more onsite and taster courses planned for the new year. The next Building Effective Screencasts workshop is in Bristol on Feb 10th, and if you're interested in reserving a place we're now taking bookings.

Also in the pipeline are some screencasting taster sessions which I'll be running at MELSIG in April, and hopefully other events throughout the year, so if you're interested in one of these (hosting or attending), a workshop place, or an onsite workshop at your institution please get in touch via info@jiscdigitalmedia.ac.uk.

Happy Christmas all - see you in 2011 !

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