pafa.net

Have you ever picked up the phone, called a friend or colleague and said ‘go to xyz web site’ and then tried to say things like “click on that link at the top left”. “no not that one, the other big yellow button”, “see that thingie at the bottom” and so on. I have and it can be frustrating.

Flowgram is an interesting new service that I found out about today thanks to Greg Schwartz. It falls somewhere in the realm of screencasting services, though maybe we need a new term for this type of tool. (Maybe there already is a term?)

With Flowgram, you open up web pages, add highlighting to point out different parts of the page and add a narration to the pages. All this is done with live web pages.

When you share this with others, they see the live web pages with your highlighting in their browser window, with a small toolbar at the top of the window with  start and pause controls. What’s really intriguing, and a bit confusing at first, is the ability to stop the presentation, go off and explore the web pages that are on the screen and then return to the Flowgram to resume the presentation.

I haven’t created any Flowgrams myself. The service is still in an invite-only beta version.  I’ll be curious to see how this service develops. I can see it being very useful for quick instruction and sharing of content with others.

Greg’s Flowgram showing some tips on using FriendFeed.

And another Flowgram - this on one What is a Flowgram.

Wish I’d noticed this earlier today (Wednesday) but there’s still time to get this screencasting software for free through Giveaway of the Day.

Wondershare DemoCreator is a screen recording software package similar to Wink. I haven’t tested it out thoroughly, but after a brief test I can say I’m impressed. Glad to have a chance to get it for free, though this is one I might pay to upgrade.

In any case grab it while you can!

Installing it took a few tries. Here’s what worked for me:

– run activate.exe
– run setup.exe
– run activate.exe again

And on my Vista computer I had to run setup.exe again to get rid of the “demo only” banner that appeared in my screencast.

It was fairly intuitive to use, I created a short demo video of my browser window in about 5 minutes.  Looks like it has lots of basic features. I don’t imagine it has everything that Camtasia and Captivate have, but this may be enough for many purposes.

For the upcoming screencasting classes in CT, I’ve put together a sample of a “slidecast” on Slideshare.net. Basically it’s a narrated Powerpoint slide show.

| View | Upload your own

Need help explaining Creative Commons licensing to kids (or adults!)? Take a look at this terrific screencast from Beth Kanter. What A Second Grader Knows About Creative Commons Licensing … Nice example of Jing as a screencasting tool too.

P.S. Here’s the link to the School Library Journal article Beth mentions in the comments. Well done Harry! And mom.

I’m working on screencasting class for later this month. We’ll be using Wink for the hands on portion. Free was a good incentive! Just curious what other people are using these days? Which package do you prefer? Why?

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Saw this on LISNews today. Techsmith is offering a free download of an older version of Camtasia Studio (version 3). Their free downloads usually expire after a 30 day trial, but now they’re offering a free registration key to install it for good. If you do want to upgrade to the latest version, you’ll be eligible for a half price upgrade ($149). Details from DownloadSquad.

A couple of years ago, I took a course on Camtasia (through IWA/HWG). The class was terrific and so was the software. I think we were using this older version. I’ve already installed this free version and look forward to comparing it with Wink, another screencasting option (free and open-source). And for $149, I might just upgrade to the newest version of Camtasia.

In any case, this free version is a good deal.