My Battle With JING – Thing No.9

I think I have finally got over the initial horror of seeing and hearing myself on video… I am not used to recording myself or hearing myself speak… It was really odd at first and I think this has been the strangest experience of the Rudai 23 course so far but it has also been the most fun I’ve had because it’s something new that I’ve had to learn from scratch. On reflection, thing 9 has been the most challenging for me so far because it has allowed me to use software and technology that I am unfamiliar with and to really learn something new, something which I was a little bit nervous about. Many of the things that have been covered so far have been tools that I am familiar with so it’s been useful to learn about them in more detail but they haven’t been completely new to me.

Google hangouts and creating my own video are both things that I’ve never done before and have really enjoyed playing with. More on the Google Hangout in the next post.

I used Jing to create my short screencast because I already had it installed on my laptop. I use the screen capture function regularly on Jing because the icon is right there on my screen and it’s really easy to use so I figured I would have a go with the video function. I always see it and have never got round to having a play with it. To be honest I’ve never felt that I’ve had anything interesting enough to share. With a little inspiration from the Rudai team, I decided to do a short screencast on the basics of using Twitter.

As a newcomer to any website or software, it can be a little bit daunting and I’ve learn that some people are reluctant to just jump straight in and start using it and would benefit from a bit of an introduction first. I am doing a project on social media at the moment and have been asked by some colleagues to demonstrate how to use Twitter so I thought I would kill two birds with one stone by doing this video.

It is a lot easier to create the actual screencast than I thought it would be and it’s worrying how fast the 5 minutes fly by when you are demonstrating something. 5 minutes really isn’t enough time so I had to really condense the information and really it isn’t that great of an introduction because if you had never used Twitter before, you would need something a lot more comprehensive. It could work as a series of short 5 minutes videos so people could learn step by step. I think I might do something along these lines for my project: Maybe a 6 part mini-series on Twitter Basics… Look what you’ve started Rudai 23! 🙂

It took me a long time to create the screencast because I kept saying something silly or spent too much time talking about one thing so I literally rerecorded it at least 20 times… I kept putting on some strange sort of telephone voice for no apparent reason so I kept starting from the beginning and I did get a little frustrated I’ll admit. I think you definitely need to have a plan of what you are going to say in front of you when creating these kinds of videos. It is really easy to start talking about unrelated things so if I’ve learn one thing it’s have a plan and stick to it!

Also Jing doesn’t make it easy! I had to convert the SWF file to a format which could be uploaded onto YouTube. I tried various free software packages available and it didn’t seem to work. I then used the Moyea video converter which worked but because I only used the free version my video now has their watermark all over it and it converted into 5 minute video into a 20 minute video with 5 minutes of content and 15 minutes of blank… I might try it again but with screencast-o-matic instead because this whole process took far too long (my entire Saturday afternoon).

I have learnt a new skill which I think will be really useful for the library. I’ve seen videos that colleagues have created on how to use the Summon search functions and the library catalogue and I’ve always wondered how you make them and now I know, so thanks Rudai 23!

Here is my video… I’m officially a YouTuber!! 🙂

I am currently completing a free mobile learning course that teaches social media through social media for professional devlopment.