Educator Resources

Hi Everyone –

We just hired a few new interns at TechSmith and it has reminded me of how useful it can be to have some extra help once in a while.

No, I'm not writing to brag about having someone to get my coffee. I want to make sure you know that you have an assistant of your very own at TechSmith—me!

My job description is pretty short and simple: help educators succeed with our software and gather as much feedback as possible to make sure it ends up in our products.

So please...put me to work! It can be anything—tech support, training, critiquing your videos, or whatever you can think of. Get in touch any time by phone, email, or chat.

And while I may not get your coffee, if I see you on the road or at a trade show I'll gladly take you to Starbucks! Check out the show schedule to see where I'll be over the next few months...and let's meet up.

–Dave

d.mccollom@techsmith.com
Office: 517.381.1331 | Cell: 517.862.6270
AIM: dave52m | Skype: dave_mccollom | Googletalk: mccollom | Yahoo: tsc_dave

How many email newsletters do you subscribe to? How many do you actually open and read?

We want this newsletter to be your favorite—to be so useful and interesting that you open it as soon as it arrives. But we need your help.

Can you take a moment right now to answer six questions that will help us tune the newsletter so it's drop-everything good?

If you choose to provide your email address at the end of the survey, we'll enter you in a drawing to win your choice of a copy SnagIt or Daniel Park's Camtasia Studio 5: The Definitive Guide. Five winners will be drawn at random on March 4 and notified by email.

Thanks for your feedback...and for reading!

Camtasia Studio updated again
If you followed the steps in last month's newsletter and enabled automatic updating, you can skip this item. Otherwise, you'll want to update Camtasia Studio again. A new, new version (5.0.2) is now available.

The update is free for existing Camtasia Studio 5 users. If you own version 4 or earlier you may choose to upgrade to the latest version for half the price of a new install (and get all the cool, new features, too).

Either way, visit the upgrade page to get the latest version.

Screencast.com gets new features
Did you know TechSmith created a Web site where you can share digital media files with students and colleagues? It's called Screencast.com...and unlike those other video sharing sites, we give you control over quality, intellectual rights, and access to your content. How cool is that?

Wait...it gets better. Screencast.com was just upgraded with a bunch of new features that make it even easier for you to upload, organize, and share digital content. Watch this 4-minute video to see what's new!

Jing Project now shares to Flickr, FTP
This handy, little tool (currently free for Mac and PC) instantly captures and shares images and video...from your computer to anywhere. Some people liken it to "video voicemail."

Jing, too, has been updated since we last mentioned it in the newsletter...including new features and a new video tour to explain how it works. Enjoy!

A recent update to Adobe Flash player causes some Flash SWF files created by Camtasia Studio 5.0 or earlier to sound like they were recorded by chipmunks.

If you or your viewers have encountered this problem, first update to the latest version of Camtasia Studio (details above)...then visit our support article to read all the details and download a free tool we created for fixing any affected SWF movies.

(Don't worry, any rodents extracted from your files will be released into a wildlife refuge...)

If you are just getting started with screen recording, or if you want to become more of a power user, Camtasia Studio 5: The Definitive Guide will get you where you want to go.

Here's a mini-review:

With more than 600 pages of friendly tips, guided tutorials, and practical exercises (not to mention cartoons and screenshots), the book walks you through the entire process of planning, recording, editing, and producing screen videos. A thorough index makes it a useful desk reference. The accompanying CD-ROM contains project files for the exercises plus free trials of various tools and utilities author Daniel Park finds handy for screencasters.

Want to meet the author? Read our interview with Daniel Park.

We got permission to let newsletter subscribers download a full chapter of the book ( PDF, 134K). This chapter will help you lay the groundwork for top-notch tutorial, demo, and marketing videos.

You can also download a few sample pages ( PDF, 132K) that give a taste of Park's step-by-step content.

Or just go ahead and order a copy of the book!

If I had to choose two words to describe Maria Andersen's approach to teaching college mathematics, they would be "resourceful" and "pioneering."

She's always asking, "What kinds of things can I do with this new technology that I didn't have the capability to do before?"

Maria pulls from free, online resources; textbook supplements; classroom technologies; and a community of like-minded instructors...combining technologies and content in new ways to create a successful, fun learning experience for students. And she blogs about her adventures with technology, so you can learn along with her.

We got a chance to sit down with Maria recently to talk about how she's using TechSmith products (and others) in her quest to both adopt and adapt to new technology. I hope you enjoy reading the article and find some ideas to apply in your own work.

ScreenDraw is a feature within Camtasia Studio; as the name suggests, it lets you draw on the screen. Unlike the highlighting and callout shapes that you add while editing, ScreenDraw is used while you're recording your video. It comes in very handy when giving a live presentation.

While recording a PowerPoint presentation, for example, you could activate the pen tool and circle something on one of your slides. Or highlight a cell in a spreadsheet. And you don't need to have a Tablet PC to use ScreenDraw!

In this 6-minute video, we'll look at how to add the ScreenDraw button to the Recording toolbar, how to use hotkeys to select a ScreenDraw tool, and how to actually use this handy feature!

You don't have to be a Flash developer to make cool, interactive images. All you need is SnagIt!

Maybe you're teaching biology and want to help students memorize the parts of the brain. You could give them a picture of the brain with each part labelled...but that doesn't do much to boost recall. Instead, you could whip up an interactive image for students to explore. As they mouse over parts of the image, the label appears. They have fun learning the brain...while testing theirs!

We've talked about hotspots before; this tutorial is a good place to start. You can also use hotspots just to enhance your presentation by adding hyperlinks to an image.

Today I've got a video that talks about the three different file formats you can use to save your interactive image (PDF, MHT, and SWF), and why you would choose each one.

(A tip: only Flash SWF supports advanced hotspot features like mouse hover popups.)