Screencast-o-matic software can be used to create presentations, lectures, demos and other courserelated recordings anything you can capture on your computer screen and/or webcam including live action, PowerPoint presentations with your voice, computer applications, mouse clicks, documents, action on websites, audio through your microphone, etc. Screencast-o-matic will produce a MP4 video file that can be easily saved to your computer and uploaded to your GoucherLearn course site, or posted on YouTube. Screencast-o-matic will create captions and subtitles for your videos. Scripted Recording and Creating Captions for Videos Creating Captions for Videos Using Text (.txt) Files Help and Support To use the Welch Center s ProPage account for Goucher recordings, click: http://screencast-omatic.com/gouchercollege Enter the password and click Submit. (Get the password from alice.miller@goucher.edu.) Click Start Recording. (Later you can click Open Pro Tools for editing.) Click the Record Screencast button to launch the new v2.0 recorder. If prompted, click to download the screen recorder. For the best audio recording, connect a headset with a microphone to record your voice.
Select the recording features desired. Select Screen, Webcam or Both. Screen will record everything seen on your computer screen, live action, documents, mouse clicks, applications, websites, Webcam will record just what your webcam sees. Both will record everything on your screen and your webcam. The webcam live action will be recorded in the bottom right corner of the video. This is an example of the screen layout created in a video made using the Both recording option. All live action on your computer screen is recorded as well as all live action shot through your webcam. The webcam recording appears in the lower right corner of the video. The instructor can work through a PowerPoint presentation or other documents or websites to present lecture material. If the Screen recording option is selected, the webcam image in the corner is not recorded. 2
This is an example of a video created using the Webcam Recording option. The instructor can speak directly into her webcam to record a lecture if desired. Notice the widescreen format that is used. The latest versions of Screencast-o-matic and PowerPoint default to the widescreen format, which is recommended. Click the Narration link to select the headset microphone you are using. Speak into your microphone to test your microphone connection. Green bars should appear in the Narration section if the audio is connected properly. To record the Computer Audio (audio from videos played or sounds made by your computer during the recording) click the Computer Audio link and select Yes. Be sure to comply with copyrightprotected videos laws. 3
Drag the recording frame (highlighted in yellow here) to surround the area that you want to video. We recommend using the default widescreen recording frame size. Keep Screencast-o-matic open and open the PowerPoint and other documents, websites, etc. that you want to record in your video. Close all other items that you do not want to record (email, etc.). If you use a PowerPoint file, position the recording frame around the main presentation screen only. Click and drag the corners of the recording frame to adjust and maintain the widescreen format. Everything outside of the recording frame will not be recorded so you can click on each page of the PowerPoint on the left as you advance through the lecture and only the main page inside the frame will appear in the video. Click the Rec (Record) button to begin recording. 4
Keep track of the recording time. If using the free account, the recording will stop after 15 minutes per video. The recording button becomes a Pause button to use if needed. Click the Pencil icon to Draw & Zoom during the recording if desired. If you click the pencil icon, the Draw & Zoom tools appear at the top of the page. Select a color and a shape and drag the shape over the page to place it on the page during the recording. To Zoom in during a recording, double-click on the page. Practice using the Draw & Zoom tools in advance. Advance through your lecture to complete the recording. After clicking the Pause button, click the Rec button to continue recording or click the Done button to end the recording. 5
The completed video recording appears. Click the Play button in the bottom left corner to review the video. Click Save as Video File to save the recording on your computer as an MP4 file, which you can drag and drop to upload it to your course site. Click Delete in the right corner to delete the recording if desired. Click the Publish button. Wait a few seconds for the recording to reach 100% to Publish to Video File. 6
When completed you will receive a green check mark. Click the OK button to exit. The video recording will be found on your computer desktop and can be dragged (uploaded) right into your GoucherLearn course site. During playback, mouse clicks appear as halos that fade in and out to show where you clicked on the page. 7
Scripted Recording and Creating Captions for Videos Log in to your Screencast-omatic ProPage account to create a Scripted Recording. Create a Scripted Recording to first enter the text for your script and then record the audio. Once you have the audio recorded you can record the corresponding video using a special version of the Screencast-o-matic recorder which plays back the audio in your script while you follow along. When you have the script, audio, and video completed you can publish your video and Captions can be added to the video using the text from your script. Click the Scripted link to create a new text script before recording the lecture audio and video. Type a title for the recording in the Enter Recording Name field. Click the 1 Enter text for script section field and type the script for the voice audio you will record in the first slide or section of your lecture video. This text will also become your video subtitle or caption. 8
Click the +Add Section field to add new sections of text that will correspond to the visuals and action in your video. You will need to break up your script into sections that take into account spots that may take some unknown amount of time (for example, to follow action on the screen). Once all of the script sections are typed, click on each section to highlight it then click the red Rec Narration button to record the voice narration for each script section. The active section being recorded will turn red, then turn green (when you should begin speaking to record the audio). The Rec button becomes a blue Pause button. Click the Pause button to stop and select another section or click the Next link to go to the next section. 9
Once the narration audio is recorded, the timed length of the narration appears on the right in each section. Click on each time dropdown menu to find the Delete Section and Remove Audio options. Use the Play button in the lower left corner to hear your recording. There is also an Undo button available in the top right corner. Click the Rec Narration button to record again as needed. When all of the audio is recorded, click the first section where you want to start recording the video. Then click the Record Video button to create the video and add it to the audio and script that you already created. 10
The recording frame will appear (highlighted green here). Drag the recording frame corners to position the frame around just the area that you want to video. A box appears in the corner that displays your script text. The text box will remain on the screen while you are recording but it will not show in the actual recorded video. Click the red Rec record button to start recording video. The red Rec record button becomes a Pause button while recording. Click the Pause button to pause or stop recording. When you click the Pause button, the Done link appears and the Rec button reappears. Click the Done link to end the video recording. 11
Now you have the option to select a section of the recorded script and then click the Narration button, the Replace Video button, the Edit Video button, or the Delete button. Click the Done button to end the video recording process. You also have the option to click on any spot in the audio/video timing track (shown at the bottom of the screen) so you can edit that part of the recording. If you click on the track, you can then click the Tools menu that appears, to access all of the Editing Tools (see link to Editing Tools instructional videos at the end of this tutorial). Click the Edit Script button to switch back to edit the script text. Click Done to exit. 12
In the Options section, click Save as Video File. To add captions to your video click the Captions button. Select Script and then click the Publish button. 13
Allow the video to finish processing to 100%. You will receive a check mark when the video has finished the publishing process. Click OK. The video has been saved on your computer as a MP4 video file. You can now upload the file to your GoucherLearn course. Creating Captions for Videos Using Text (.txt) Files Create Captions on a Screencast-o-matic video recording by uploading a special text (.txt) file. To create a.txt file, open Notepad software on your PC (Mac users: save text as Plain Text). Follow a specific format to define where to place each caption in the video. Type the start and end time (in seconds) for each caption line. On the next line, type the caption text. Note: Consider using free Speech Recognition software to easily create text files (see page 20). 14
When typing the start and end time for each caption, use a comma followed by one space to separate the start time and end time. Leave a blank line after each caption line (shown here in green). Save the completed.txt file on your computer. Note: Review your video to note the exact recording times that you want each caption to start and end. If you previously created a Screencast-o-matic Scripted Recording, that script text can be uploaded to create the captions (see page 8). Open your Screencast-omatic ProPage account. Click on a video to add captions. 15
In the Options box click Save as Video File. Click the Captions option. Click Add New to be able to upload your.txt file from your computer. 16
Note: If you already created a Screencast-o-matic Scripted Recording you will see the option to select that Script to use as the captions for the video. Then click the Publish button. If selecting Add New, click the Watch this tutorial link to view the directions if desired. Make sure that English is the selected language (or select another). Click Choose Text File, select the.txt file that you created and saved on your computer, and click Open. 17
Click the Publish button. Allow the video to process to 100% completion. You will receive a check mark when the publishing process is finished. Click OK. The video MP4 file can now be uploaded (drag and drop it) into a topic section in your GoucherLearn course. 18
When you play your video the captions will now appear at the bottom of the screen. Note that the captions bar blacks out the video at the bottom of the screen. Help and Support At the top of the Screencast-o-matic home page, click the Help link to find instructional videos. The Scripted Recordings feature is used to add text captions to the bottom of your videos. To learn how, click the Scripted Recordings tools link below and review the four Scripted Recordings tutorials for the new v2.0 recorder. Scripted Recordings tools: Scripted Recordings Videos 19
Editing Tools: Editing Tools Help Videos Help: Editing Help Videos Speech Recognition Tip: To avoid typing lots of text when creating captions, use Microsoft Speech Recognition (free on Windows computers). Find Speech Recognition in your Control Panel. Speak into a microphone (headset) to automatically type your captions into Notepad. (Mac users use Dictation) Speech Recognition Directions For Windows - Speech Recognition For Macs - Dictation - Speech Recognition 20
Best practices for recording: 1. Conduct a short test recording. Audio should be clean and easy to hear. Video should have sufficient lighting. 2. Introduce yourself at the beginning of your recording. What interests you about this topic? Why is the topic relevant to the class? What do you intend to accomplish in delivering the lecture? 3. Do not read a prepared script, but keep a list of topics you want to cover. 4. Aim for a relaxed, conversational delivery and a spontaneous feel. 5. Engage your audience. Pose provoking questions; describe memorable experiences; make connections with a current situation; share a truth you ve learned over the years. As you speak, imagine you are speaking to just one student. Make imaginary eye contact. 6. Do not refer to due dates, assignments, the weather, holidays or seasons, as these elements may change over time. 7. Record in sections that are a maximum of 10-15 minutes in length. September 2015 21