Friday, April 29, 2005

Screencasting and Google Print

After reading Collin's entry on Screencasting and FYC, I decided to see whether I could line up a free screencasting app.  For kicks as much as for generative digression, asides from more demanding and rigorous projects occupying my time as the semester rolls to a conclusion, of late I've felt compelled to tinker with new software--"new" in the sense that I don't have a terrific aptitude for using it.  For the most part, I've been messing around with Flash lately, while taking breaks from writing.  But screencasting...never given it much thought.  All the motive I need.

I poked around the web, following the link to Will Richardson's entry and Jon Udell's column.  Then, by way of another site, I found the entry in wikipedia on screencasting, and then, checked out each of the software apps listed.  Let. Me. See.  Camtasia 2.1 for $299 or Wink 1.5 for free. Camtasia?  Wink?  Camtasia?  Wink?

Wink 1.5 doesn't have audio capabilities yet (I read somewhere that the 2.0 concept includes audio and an undo option), but other than that, I've found it surprisingly feature-rich.  Plus, it's easy to use (not for Mac, but as a PC user, no Garageband or TinderBox for me now, either).  Capturing, cropping, resizing, adding comment balloons and next arrows--all a breeze.  Probably a sluggish download, but here's my unremarkable first try. Basically, it's just a few screenshots clicking through the stuff I'm writing about here, links and so on.

I didn't plan it carefully before I put it together; hence, in the first try you'll see an odd mix of tabbing between the stuff on screencasting and other stuff I was looking at today on Google Print (check it out, if you haven't already).  I was encouraged to find several texts related to comp/rhet rendered into searchable goodness.  Really something, that.

I don't have any decided conclusions about screencasting and FYC; mostly I'm just thinking it over.  But I think it productively excites the "what if" questions we need to continually ask and answer (ahem...act upon)--about the implications of discord (or outright contradiction) between cross-disciplinary principles and however-wrought conceptions of what constitutes composition.

Posted by Derek Mueller at April 29, 2005 3:35 PM to Media