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| News You Can Use |
May 2008 | Issue 53 |
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Hi everyone, I'm Katie Birmingham. I recently joined the TechSmith team as the newest marketing writer. I also just relocated to MI from Loveland, CO. In doing so, I left my husband behind, temporarily, in CO. He is among your brave ranks as a teacher and needs to finish out the school year before joining me in MI.
If any of you are like my husband, May is a tough month and June cannot come fast enough. He is at the middle school level, teaching 8th grade science and social studies. At his school, periods last a whopping 98 minutes. I personally cannot imagine trying to keep over thirty 13 and 14-year-olds engaged for that amount of time.
That is where my thoughts on this newsletter come in. I hope that as the editor, I can give you ideas, from your peers, on how you can use technology in the classroom to help you do what you do everyday. After all isn't that, ideally, the point of technology...to improve our daily lives and make things easier?
I am confident that we can keep this newsletter as a welcome addition to your inbox by covering relevant content and sharing what your peers are doing, and if they feel it is working or not.
Enjoy the summer and please, let me know if you have something that you would like to share with the readers of this newsletter. I am always looking for thoughts, stories, or even something you would like to know more about. Ask me, I'll research. Chances are if you are wondering, so are others. Anything you would like to share, send it my way.
Katie Birmingham
Newsletter Editor
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Now you can save your Jing or even copy and paste it!
Don't worry, the option of creating a URL is still there...but now there are other ways to use your video or screen shot.
Watch the demo highlighting the new features. Upgrade by just opening Jing, we'll do the work for you. Don't have Jing yet? Download it here...and did I mention it's FREE?
Enjoy!
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Julie Miller, Senior Professor, Mathematics, Daytona Beach College |
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Here at TechSmith, we have been getting quite a few great emails about how teachers are using Camtasia Studio to record their lectures. There are various reasons that teachers decide to do this and the videos are used in a myriad of different ways. One of these stories came from Julie Miller, senior professor of mathematics at Daytona Beach College. She video tapes her lectures then uses class time for activities like discussion, group work, and more one-on-one time with the instructor.
Julie uses Camtasia Studio to "...create video content for my students. I post them in a Learning Management System and also by using Screencast.com. I've used the videos to supplement what I do in class, and I also use videos to replace my lecture." Julie asks students to watch the video lecture for homework. This frees up class time to assign a worksheet that students do in groups.
Using this method reverses the tradition of worksheets or practice problems as homework and class time for lecture. One benefit to this is that students have the opportunity to ask questions of Julie or their peers while they are completing problems in class, instead of having to note the question at home and waiting until class meets again to ask.
Another benefit of recording lectures is that students now have the ability to pause, rewind and review the material as much as they need to. "It's hard to rewind me in the classroom," says Julie.
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So what about the drawbacks? I asked Julie about this and she said, "No drawbacks, really. Recently, I noticed that I was hearing a squeaky sound with the audio when I saved the videos as a .swf file and watched them through Flash Player 9." Here at TechSmith, we call him the chipmunk. There is a fix for it, you can get it here.
If you are intimidated and don't think you have the technical skills or time for lecture recording, don't worry. I asked Julie about her process and she said, "Camtasia is very intuitive. I think it was only about a 2 hour learning curve from the time I loaded the software to successfully creating my first video. I thought the online tutorials were excellent."
So, there you have it. Another great use of Camtasia Studio!
Have you been recoding your lectures? Let me know how you have used the videos so we can share with other education newsletter subscribers.
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Stamps, stamps and more stamps! Just when you thought we would not be able to come up with anymore, we go and add proofreading and alphabet. Click on the image of the one you like to download. If you want to see all the stamps we have available, click the download stamps button.
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Most of our stamps are made based upon user requests so make sure you let us know if you have a new idea.
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Chris McQueen, Instructional
Designer |
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A SnagIt user recently wrote in to ask if he could turn his own signature into a SnagIt stamp. Truth is, you can turn just about any image into a SnagIt stamp with a couple of clicks.
In this brief video, Chris shows you how...
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Rachel Clark, Instructional
Designer |
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Last month, we talked about the basics of Camtasia Theater and told you to stay tuned for more. Well, more is here! Check out our full series of Theater videos.
Let us teach you how to add your videos to a Theater; create, customize and use a table of contents; and learn how to share your work.
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Bundle your videos with Theater |
The videos were even made using Camtasia Theater so you can get a good idea of what it looks like. Tell us how you would use Theater
(To get the rebuilt Theater, you'll need to update to Camtasia Studio 5.1.)
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SnagIt
Screen Capture and Sharing
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Screencast.com
Media Housing
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Camtasia Studio
Recording and Presentation
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TechSmith Lapel Microphone
High Quality Sound
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Morae
Usability Testing
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UserVue
Remote User Research
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