Week 3 of my Practicum

This week I worked on three instructional videos for using Camtasia 8.  These videos were somewhat shorter in duration then my previous videos.  However, that did not make the process go a lot faster like I thought/hoped it might.  I added closed captions to my videos and had some problems getting the captions to show up on the videos once they were saved, but thankfully it all came together.

The first video I made was a tutorial on how to use a callout in Camtasia 8.  Callouts are used to point out or highlight important information or objects on your screen.  This video was the quickest and simplest of the three I made because it is a simple tool to use and it was easy to demonstrate in Camtasia.

Below is the tutorial on using a callout in Camtasia 8:

The next video I made was a tutorial on how to use the zoom function on Camtasia.  The zoom function helps guide the viewer to where you want them to focus.  This, in turn, makes it easier on the viewer because they are not searching the screen for the information you want them to retain.  This video was a little more difficult to make because of the different screens and functions I was trying to highlight.  The more words in your script and functions you have to demonstrate, the more difficult it is to get right in one take.  I need to write Camtasia technical support and ask them to add a function where you can stop the recording and back it up to where the mistake was and just start the recording from the mistake.  

Below is the tutorial on using the zoom function in Camtasia 8:

 

The final video I made was a tutorial on how to show the creator via webcam on the screen of your Camtasia video.  This was the shortest video, but it was difficult because I had to use multiple screenshots to illustrate my points instead of being able to use video recordings.  One thing that threw me off at first is that when Camtasia is displaying your webcam feed in its video, it does not appear on the screen until you stop the recording.  After you have stopped the recording, you can move the webcam box and adjust the size to fit your video needs.  

Below is the tutorial on displaying your webcam within a Camtasia 8 video: