Worked Example Screencast
Screencasting is something that I believe strongly in. The ability to take a project and make a less than 8 min video on exactly how to do something, I think is a great learning tool. These days if I really want to learn anything, a quick youtube video is my goto.
The tough part of this assignment was to come up with something to do a screencast on that has some sort of activity or followup that the students can do as well. I ended up choosing a new service that we have just installed on campus called Okta. Okta uses SAML 2.0 (single sign on stuff) as a way to make the end users life (in this case Carroll employees and students) easier by having one portal for all web site logins. You really don’t need to know all of the background stuff, just the fact that it can make your life easier by remembering all of those passwords and usernames for you. We have tied this service into both our Google Apps accounts and our Office 365 accounts here on campus. With this tutorial I explain Okta, what it is, and how you can use it and customize it to your own personal needs.
I ended up going with Techsmith Camtasia for creation. I did this because, even though I have long had a Camtasia licence, I really had not used the product much. I tried to challenge myself a bit by adding in some extra features (zoom in and out) and a few highlights. I was also always keeping in mind the principles that we have been going over in class from the Clark and Mayer book.
Screencasting is not easy by any stretch. It takes a long time and can drive a person crazy trying to get it all correct. I spent a lot of time doing this screencast but in the end I felt like I could even spend a few more hours getting in better. For me I would rather take that time to create other engaging media or focus on activities that I do in the classroom. I try to keep things lite, not a lot of frills and somewhat personable.
I had some fun making this and learned quite a bit, and for me, those are two very important things.Thanks for watching this 6 min worked example screencast on the new Carroll College okta portal.