Software Demo Video: Preparing to Use Camtasia

Prepared by Johnathan Gajdos, Fall 2006

As part of the class, each student will make a 6-10 minute Camtasia video recording of a software demo.  This handout discusses some of the benefits of using a storyboard to plan the video before beginning the recording stage of the project.   Creating a storyboard before you begin your Camtasia recording will help you:

A storyboard for this project might contain four main elements:

Sequence number  (to order your steps)

Screen activity

What do you want the audience to see?
What will you be doing during the recording?
Where are your cursor and mouse pointer?
How will this coordinate with your narration?

Narration (can be recorded separately or along with your screen capture video).

What do you want the audience to hear?
How can you explain/supplement the visual elements?
How can you be clear?
How do you want to coordinate the narration with the screen action?

Production tasks

What do you want to add to the narration and screen action to enhance clarity?
What do you need to do to package the video as a stand-alone demo?
How can you emphasize important elements of the video and eliminate unnecessary clutter?

Examples of such techniques might include:

Title page
Credits
Subtitles
SectionS
Highlighting
Callouts/Hotspots
Panning
Zooming in/out
Editing audio/adding audio
Pauses/breaks
Quizzing/feedback

  Partial storyboard for simple Camtasia video providing a basic overview of ICON (logging-in and navigating).Note: a more complete narrative and additional production tasks (zooming in, callouts, etc.) may be beneficial.

 

#

Screen activity

Narration

Production tasks

1

Start: blank browser window

Type: URL for ICON website

This short video demonstrates how to access the University of IowaÕs course management system, ICON—Iowa Courses Online. To begin, simply type in the URL for the ICON site--that is icon.uiowa.edu

Title page: ÒHow to use ICON/Johnathan Gajdos/Fall 2006Ó

Fade in to start

2

Enter: HawkID and Password

Click: log-in.

Click: plus sign to access semester course listings.

Select: ICON Course (Fall 06 013:011)

Then, you need to login with your HawkID and password. Click login.

Now you should see a listing of the courses for which you have access. This is arranged by semester É

Select the course you are interesting in accessing

Subtitle: ÒAccessing the ICON URLÓ

Subtitle: ÒSelecting a course within ICONÓ

3

Mouseover: toolbar commands ÔclasslistÕ, ÔTA infoÕ, ÔSyllabusÕ

Click : ÔsyllabusÕ

Close : window with syllabus pdf

You are now in the ICON site for that particular course.  Each course is set-up differently, soÉ

To see a list É. To view information about the instructorÉ É

The syllabus link provides a good example of how external É

When you are finished, simply close that link É

Subtitle: ÒA course siteÓ

4

Click: ÔcontentÕ

Scroll (down and up): content table of contents

Here, under content, is the main meat of the course. Here we have, arranged by chapter, all of the homework exercises, different cultural modules that are available in each chapter, and other information about the course.

Subtitle: ÒA courseÕs main content pageÓ

5

Click: Òcultural explorationÓ

Mouseover: Òvideo-basedÓ & Òtext-basedÓ

Click: Òvideo-based assignmentsÓ

Scroll down: through assignments

For example, if a student wanted to learn about their cultural exploration exercises, they would click on cultural exploration. Then they have a choice of video-based assignments and text-based assignments.  Under each of these categories there are a number of individual assignments that open in a separate pdf file for the student to complete.

Subtitle: ÒAn individual content pageÓ

6

Click: Òlog-outÓ

When you are finished with ICON, you can simply click on log-out.

Subtitle: ÒLogged outÓ

Freeze final screen (ICON welcome page)

Comprehension quiz: two multiple choice questions