Screencasts

For this post I experimented with Jing and Screencast-o-matic.  I had never had any experience with Jing before, but had used Screencast-o-matic for an assignment in another library course.  They had a lot of similarities, but also a lot of differences.
Jing is an application that you have to download on the computer, while Screencast-o-matic is a website that you can access.  I did not have any issues with downloading Jing, but the website said it will soon not be available on all browsers because they are in the process of changing it to a better application.
On Jing you can capture a video and a screenshot.  On Screencast-o-matic you can do a video, but you have to upgrade to the paid version to do a screenshot.
The screen capture tool on Jing was a little more cumbersome to use on Jing than it is on Screencast-o-matic.  You have to drag the square to the area you want to record, and it takes some practice to get it just right.  Screencast-o-matic has a large square that you can easily move and make larger and/or smaller.
For the actual recording specifics, both programs are similar.  You can redo and pause on both.  Screencast-o-matic allows you to record for up to 15 minutes, while Jing only allows 5 minutes.  They both allow you to save the videos to the desktop, and both save the videos to their websites.  Screencast-o-matic also allows you to upload the video to YouTube.  They also both have a countdown to recording, which is very helpful!
I liked both programs and think they would be useful in the library and/or classroom.  In the library you could record screencasts of how to do searches of the databases, or introduce new apps and downloads the videos to your website for students, teachers and parents to access.  In the classroom, you could use it to teach concepts students may need a little more help with, or explain certain parts of homework that may be confusing.  As a current classroom teacher now, I am going to try and use it to record instructions for stations and to explain new applications that I want the students to try.
Though Jing was great, I think that I liked Screencast-o-matic the best.  I think that with our Chromebooks at school, it would be the app that students would be able to use the best.  It is more user-friendly and also has a longer recording time, and I think that with as much as my students love to talk it would be a better option for them:)
Ultimately as well, I found out that when I recorded my video on Jing, Jing does not support audio recording on a Mac.  You have to download another application for it to work, which my computer was not allowing.:(.  So for the Jing video below there is not audio, but I was showing students what to do when they were using the Library resources to search about pandas.

Screencast-o-matic

Jing

http://www.screencast.com/t/hEnCoCHyGpv

After I couldn't get the Jing to capture my audio, I went to the app that is going to take over Jing, SnagIt, and made a video on there.  It has more features than Jing did, and let's you save it to several different places such as YouTube, like Screencast-o-matic did.  It also allowed you to add text and graphics onto your video.  I still think that Screencast-o-matic would be easier for my elementary school students to use, but I think SnagIt would be fun for me or upper grade students to experiment with!

SnagIt