Last week I was watching Screenr’s Public Stream when I noticed a common theme in the screencasts:

They were all perfect.

Now I don’t mean perfect in terms of audio quality, lesson structure, speaker preparedness or even content relevance. They certainly covered the range in those areas:-)

By “perfect” I mean perfect in that they didn’t show any mistakes.

There were no major wrong turns, do-overs or common pitfalls we all make from time to time.

The only mistakes were some “Umms” or “I meant to say…” type trip-ups.

Now I’m open to the possibility that all those screencasts were recorded in one take. It’s possible. But I suspect most screencasters are clicking the Delete button more than once before getting their screencasts “just right”.

If that’s the case, how many learning opportunities were lost by restarting the recording?

Sure it’s important to model correct behavior in training, but isn’t there just as much we can learn from each other’s mistakes and internal conversations for navigating wrong turns and common pitfalls?

This is where the principles of improvisation can help us accept screencasting mistakes and turn them into learning events.

Improv and the Principle of Agreement

If you’re familiar with improv, you’ll know that while improv is unrehearsed and incredibly dynamic, there are some guiding rules actors follow that enable improv to work.

The most common principle is the principle of agreement. It’s often referred to as the “Yes, and…” principle.

The “Yes, and…” principle states that what’s offered by one actor, must be accepted by the other actor. This acceptance, or agreement, is the building block of the skit.

For example, if one actor hands another actor an invisible object and says, “I’m giving you one million dollars”, the other actor must accept that a million dollars was offered. The second actor would follow up with something l like, “Yes, and it’s all in pennies” <insert laugh track>.

It’s when an offer is rejected that the skit dies.

For example, if the second actor had said, “No, it’s not a million dollars, it’s a bag of rice” the skit grinds to a halt because the offer was rejected and now a new scene must be established.

By focusing on the concept of agreement, the skit continues moving forward regardless of what each actor offers to the other.

Applying “Yes, and…” to Screencasting

Screencasting is a lot like improv. Each time you make an error, consider it an offering. OK, so you’re offering it to yourself, but nevertheless it’s an offer. It’s up to you to accept it or reject it.

How do you reject it? By clicking Delete and starting over. End of skit.

But if you accept the offering, you can turn your mistake into a learning moment for your viewers. You don’t have to keep going with the mistake, just acknowledge the error as a reality of the moment and demonstrate how to back out of it and keep the lesson moving. You can always record your sanitized version later.

Consider keeping a note pad and tracking major undos or mistakes during your projects. In fact, you could even develop a library of common mistakes professionals make in a particular application.

Examples:

Here are a few possible phrases for using the “Yes, and…” principle in your screencasts:

• “Did you see what just happened? (Yes) I accidentally deleted the masking layer and here’s the steps for restoring the masking layer so we can select and delete the adjustment layer.”
• “So yeah, we animated the slide object to the left and here’s how we reverse the animation to animate it to the right”
• “After previewing our slide we can see the annotations aren’t syncing with the audio and here’s how we can fine tune those in the Audio Editor.”
• “If you’re seeing this dialog window, it means you selected the wrong keyframe on the timeline and you’ll need to click Control-Z two times to go back two steps.”

The thing is to accept the mistake as an offer and an opportunity to share your process for correcting the mistake with your learners.

Here’s an example of a screencast I did a few years ago showing a mistake and readjusting the lesson: Fireworks Masking Tutorial (:45 into the lesson).

If you’re recording with Screenr and try this approach, will you consider using the hashtag #mst8k? I’d love to track and share your examples!

We released an awesome elearning tool this week. It’s called Screenr, it’s web-based, it’s completely free and the easiest screencasting tool I’ve used.

Sure, because I now work for Articulate, you’re probably thinking I’m biased, and that’s fair, because I am. But I’ve also been screencasting for over ten years, produced some video training courses and maintain a popular video tutorial site, so hopefully that counts for something

But don’t just take my word for it. Check out what others are saying about Screenr:

Read Write Web:

The video quality is very high and thanks to the fact that the embedded player comes with an HD mode, these videos also look very good in full-screen mode.

We should also note that Screenr offers a very nice mobile interface for the iPhone, so even Twitter users on a mobile client will be able to watch your videos.

And another good one from CNET:

[Screenr] is the best option for creating screencasts fast and getting them posted immediately. All you do is let the Java-powered recording app load from the Screenr Web page and hit a button to record a screencast of up to five minutes.

And for even more great reviews, check out what Twitter is saying:

http://twitter.com/screenr/favorites

The video quality is amazing. Here’s an example screencast I recorded the other day. After the video begins, click the Play in HD button on the player to view in high-definition.

Some of my favorite features:

• Twitter integration – you record, you Tweet. It’s just that simple
• YouTube integration – post directly to your YouTube account
• Five minute recording limit – Just as Twitter helped us write more concisely, Screenr will help us screencast more concisely
• Mac/PC compatible – Runs from your web browser so you can easily record from a Mac or PC
• MP4 format – you can even export a non-branded, ad-free mp4 version!
• iPhone compatible – playback on your iPhone

Screenr launches from your browser and has a handy bookmarklet you can drag to your browser toolbar to make recording even easier!

So if you’re creating product demos, guided tours, software demonstrations or elearning courses, I hope you’ll give Screenr a try.

And for those who have already tried Screenr, what did you think? Please share your thoughts and even samples here.

The latest versions of Captivate and Camtasia confirm the screencasting & video tutorial industry is quickly evolving. As someone who’s created web-based video tutorials for almost ten years, I’ve tried just about every screen recorder developed.

I still remember recording with HyperCam back in 1998. Trying to capture anything larger than 640×480 required a high end machine and if you wanted to post to the web, you had to get creative with frame rates, key frames and color depth. That’s all changed now and even the Mac has seen viable alternatives to SnapzPro. Most notably is ScreenFlow which was just released a week ago.

If you’re looking for a place to start, you have a lot of choices, but the two most important (PC) applications are still Captivate and Camtasia. Each application offers a very different approach to screencasting so it’s common to find people asking how to go about choosing one or the other.

“Which simulation tool should we use, Camtasia or Captivate?”

I have to smile every time I hear that. It reminds me of another question we often hear in training:

“Should this course be ILT or elearning?”

Let’s jump over the fact we’re asking for solutions before stating our objectives and try rephrasing for a more powerful question:

“How can we integrate Camtasia with Captivate?”

Folks, this doesn’t have to be an “either-or” decision. Captivate and Camtasia are excellent tools, and each offers advantages over the other.

Camtasia is the tool of choice for professionally narrated software training companies. Lynda, Total Training, and others create their products using full motion, narrated video capture software.

Captivate, in its price-range, is hands-down the best authoring tool for creating software quizzes, simulations and interactions. What used to take days and weeks to create by hand, can be done in minutes and hours in Captivate.

Blend these two applications and you have the ability to create best-in-class learning products:

• Camtasia for your narrated “Show me” demonstrations; and,
• Captivate for your “You try” simulations.

Blending Captivate and Camtasia

If you’re interested in making the case for both applications, here are a few challenges you may experience and some suggestions for managing them.

Cost

I realize most corporate training budgets probably won’t provide for the entire design/development team to own both applications but that just means you need to be creative.

• Can your software budget be broken out to get half your team Captivate and the other half Camtasia?
• Consider the make up of your team and design some criteria for who would receive each application.

New application to learn

Not every designer is looking to augment their skill set. Some people are happy to stay with what they already know. How you present the model to them is important.

• Identify those more open to new ideas and looking to try new tools. Their energy and enthusiasm will make the difference.
• Challenge your team to list the most compelling features for their favorite application. In most cases you’ll hear “Camtasia for demonstrations” and “Captivate for simulations/interactions” and they’ll make your case for you.

Course design is different

Designers might find scripting for Captivate easier than Camtasia. If your Camtasia recordings are being narrated in real-time, it’s not as easy to follow the script verbatim. Try working with a high-level outline or storyboard when writing for Camtasia.

Depending on your legal review process, this could also be a challenge. Work with legal to see if they’ll review the final, recorded product. If that doesn’t work, you can always record the lesson and transcribe back into a script for legal review.

Demonstrate the value

Sometimes it’s easier to communicate new ideas by first building a prototype or model. Someone less familiar with both applications my not see the value in using both.

• Take the initiative to develop a working prototype that you can show around. Give them something tangible to think about.
• Record the audio in the highest quality format and use actual content.

Multiple applications to support

As long as your LMS and course player (Articulate, Lectora, custom) supports .swf files, you should be fine. Your developers can assist you with any custom paths or file loading rules but I haven’t come across any technical issues.

It’s usually best to bring IT into these discussions earlier rather than later. There’s nothing more defeating than spending weeks advocating for something that will never work on your network. If you’re familiar enough with the technology and file formats, you might want to work to bring the learning case to your team first.

How an XML mistake changed my perspective

A little over year ago I was asked to represent my division in an authoring tools committee. An organization-wide effort was underway to consolidate the dozens of applications being used. This made a lot of sense and predictably, the top industry applications were selected and the others were retired.

When it came down to choose between Captivate and Camtasia, the lines were grayer and each business unit provided unimpeachable arguments for why they used the tool they did.

In an effort to aggregate the numerous elearning examples provided by the groups, I created a quick XML course file and loaded the samples into a demo course player. Inadvertently, I put some Captivates in the Camtasia chapter. It wasn’t until I QC’d the file that I discovered how nicely they played together. Had I only previewed the code I probably wouldn’t have noticed it.

So, the case was made and both applications were certified. Admittedly, most groups still develops with one application or the other. Nevertheless, there’s a lot of opportunity for combining the two programs!