What Is Screencast and What is Screencasting?
To begin with, screencasting is the act of recording computer screen with all images, sounds, and activities that happen along. And a screencast is a video that you will acquire after screencasting with a screen recorder. Alternatively, we call it a video screen capture that can contain images, activities and sometimes audio narration.
A screencast can be provided under either an online or downloadable resource which is a perfect medium to provide others practical materials. Those kinds of materials that can be reused and revitalized for both short and long-term usage.
Why We Love Screencasts?
A powerful screen recorder as a prominent teaching and training tool apparently brings both trainers and learners huge rewards. And we, by “we” I mean you and me, should have a screen recorder installed so that we can create a screencast when we happen to need. Herewith we will come to the whys and wherefores of the screencasts’ popularity and prominence as they have today as well as why we should love them.
1. Learn More Actively, Train More Effectively
Screencasts in Training
As a trainer, you can create a screencast which is a perfect instructional medium to deliberate contents to either new comers or existing individuals in your organization. Especially, when there is a difficult concept of technology, labor safety or health administration, screencasts strongly contribute. They can give explanations as clear and concise as you wish. They give out information-rich and full-of-visualization videos that engage trainees, enhance their experiences, hence increase their achievement.
Screencasts in Pedagogy
Added to that, screencasts play a not-less-critical role in education. Turn your thought into a hundred-student class with only one in-charged teacher. How could he or she handle answering all the potential querists’ questions and problems in the time-limited occasion? Well, here comes a screencast. Teachers, even those who are not familiar with some IT matters, can still utilize painlessly an easy-to-use screencasting tool to make a digital recorder to spread out their lectures. They can also use it to provide in-depth discussions, or even to give feedbacks for their students.
Screencasts in Cognitive Overload Reduction
Making use of a screen recorder to create impressive videos will lessen cognitive overload. For both trainees in organizations and students in classes, downloadable references like videos are essentially needed. Thanks to that, they can learn in their self-pace, at any time that is convenient for them. They are allowed to search for additional information while replaying and re-watching the video as many times as they desire until obstacles are solved. They don’t have to even think about interrupting their teachers, which is not usually practicable in the classroom. This, as a result, saves them a huge amount of time and keep them from possible stresses.
2. Communicate More Successfully
Screencasts and Business Proposals
What about creating a video to better communicate with your customers or potential clients? Having a compelling video showing a product demo or service substantiation, you can walk your audiences through a general introduction of what you can provide and why they should lay their trust on you. Sometimes, you might want to offer different introducing videos for different target groups of audiences, who are being your existing customers or just hanging around before making their final decision. Either the way, with a screencast focusing on how good your products or services are, the outcome will be optimized eventually.
Screencasts and Bounce Rate
It’s not unusual seeing organizations and individuals take advantages of their own websites to boost the business status. Along with whitepapers, you should never ignore the vital role of the screencast. Thinking about a site containing only a list of long articles in comparison with the one consisting not only articles but interesting videos, the latter must sound much more fascinating for everyone. Providing your visitors more choices on how they can get to understand you is one of the most effective ways to reduce the bounce rate of your website. By this I mean, although some of the visitors chose to read manuals to find information, a large quantity of them would sooner go with watching short how-to videos. Those videos with eye-catching visual adages can engage them and keep them staying longer on your website. So, take an adequate consideration.
3. Work More Productively
Quick and Easy to Create Screencasts
You know that screencasts really work and now you want to make some of them by yourself to engage your audiences. However, it comes a question, how much time does it take to create a screencast? Most of the time, you will get answers indicating that it’s quick and easy to create a simple one. Occasionally, it varies depending on your final purposes, and more importantly, your intended audiences. Regardless the time needed to create a screencast, you will find it much easier than exhaustingly searching for a suitable video on the Internet.
With a right screen recording tool in hand, the procedure should be:
- Record your screen.
- Edit the recorded video (if needed).
- Export to a video and share it.
Save Time and Money with Screencasts
Now, turn your thought a little back to training and learning. What will happen if you and your trainers are being far away from each other? Does this mean you have to make face-to-face conversations all the time or make a phone call whenever you have an obstacle? Actually, it definitely doesn’t have to connote that since it’s really time-consuming and inefficient. In any alike context, use a screen recorder to demonstrate what your problem is. Then share it with your trainers or peers to ask for an explicatory remediation. Ideally, the amount of time and money would normally be spent on transportation or telephone connection fee could be saved for much more demanding activities.
Without a powerful screencasting tool like ActivePresenter, there would have a bit of struggle for you to find a perfect medium that could save your working days. Luckily, in a less time yet more productivity manner, you are allowed to spend from minutes to hours designing a perfect screencast rather than devoting all days, sometimes all weeks long to make an idea clear for others. More interestingly, screencasts as videos under popular formats (MP4, AVI, MKV, etc.) are easy to be stored and shared.
We are not arriving at a conclusion on which domain the screencast plays the most important role. How screencasts contribute also depends hugely on how and when we use them. What we assure is that they really work and their prominence is on the rapid rise. They, in certain ways, thrive our work, succeed our learning and strengthen our communication.