Hi everyone, today we're going to be talking about making screencasts using
the app called Vittle.
I'm going to use a series of screenshots to show you how I use this app
with some of my classes.
The first thing you want to do is to open up the App Store in order to
download the app, Vittle. Once you've opened up the App Store, you can type in V-I-T-T-L-E in
the search field and you have a series of options pop-up. I'm currently using
the full version of Vittle, this one right here, which cost about $8, but you
can try using the free version which has almost all of the same features. Click
this button and enter your password in order to download it onto your iPad. Once
you've downloaded the app, click on this icon right here in order to open up Vittle. The
home screen for the Vittle app will look like this.
Mine obviously have a lot of screencasts on it because I use them all the time,
but yours will be blank except for a tutorial. To start making your screencast
click the + button in the upper left-hand corner. When you click the +
button, a new video will open up, which is default titled "My Vittle". And, because I
don't want to just call my video "My Vittle", I'm gonna change its name. Tap
here on the title of the video in order to change it. When you tap the name of
the video, a little menu will pop up with three options to rename, duplicate
or delete your video. We're going to hit rename. I'm going to call this video "Screencasting
101". Here's Vittle's work screen. It has a number of options at the top to draw,
erase, select, point or add. You can also choose the colors that you want to draw
with by using these buttons right here. The first thing that I would like to do is
to draw something on the screen, so I'm going to hit the draw button right up here. When
you tap the draw button, you'll have two options to change the characteristics of
your line. You can change its thickness and you can change how opaque it is.
Right now, the color I have selected is this orange color, so the line will look
something like this.
If you want to do with some shading, you can also do something like this. When you add
layers of color on top of each other in order to make it more or less opaque. If
you don't want to use lines that are completely opaque, you can play around with shading and
deposit layers of color like this.
Also if I decide that I don't like this orange color all they have to do is tap
the orange button up top.
Tapping and holding the color that I don't want anymore will open up a color
menu to select from a list of preset colors, or pretty much any color shade
in between. If I decide that I don't like something that I have now drawn, I have
two options to change it. First, I could select the erase button right here and
simply erase the last thing that I didn't like, and then if I change my mind I
can undo anything that I just did by tapping the undo button right here.
If I want to drag and drop or resize something on the screen, I can use this
next button for the select tool. This tool allows me to copy, paste or move
things around a few different parts of my presentation. This tool allows me to
move things between presentations or to copy and paste them to different parts
of the same presentation. I use it pretty often if I don't like where things are placed
on the page. If I decided that I want to add a photo to my presentation, I can
click the add button right here. This button allows you to open up the camera
roll on your iPad. Now I can add any pictures that I have saved on here. Now
let's talk about one of the most important things about screencasting; the
recording portion. If you click this red button right here it will start the
recording process you'll know if you're recording because you'll see a tiny
counter going right here where the record button used to be. While you're recording,
you can talk,
draw or do pretty much anything you want. When you're finished with a section of
recording, you can either push pause or push stop. I like to record my screencasts
in multiple small segments because I tend to make a lot of mistakes, so I
usually push stop instead of pause. The best way to understand the difference
between stop and pause is to click the view button right here. Okay so this is the
view screen for Vittle, and this means that you can see it's actually recorded
this screencast in lots of little tiny segments beause I tend to do a lot of mis-speaks.
This is probably the feature that I like the most about Vittle; I can delete or
reorder chunks of this video anytime I want. To delete something, all I have to do is
tap the scene that I don't like and swipe to the left.
Then a delete button appears, and I can delete the scene I don't want. This is especially
handy if you misspeak or if you happen to be working, like I am now, in an area
where there are lots of kids walking around and occasionally they make lots of loud
noise. I couldn't get the entire screen to fit on here, but I want you to take a
look down here at the very bottom where you have the option to delete all of
your scenes. Or, if you tap this button right here to play what you already
recorded. The view menu is also a really useful because you can use it to save
your videos. So you can either opt to save it to your camera roll on your iPad,
or you can tap "open in" and you can open it up in something like Dropbox if you
want to send it out to your students or in an email. So now that we've gone through the basics of
creating a screencast, here some best practices for creating your own. So my
number one tip is actually to have a set of notes prepared on the topic that you
want to talk about you know roughly the order you'll prevent your information, and you
make sure you don't forget anything. My second tip is to try to use a stylus even though
the iPad is designed to use your finger, a stylus makes it significantly easier
to do fine, detailed work that you might need. Just like with planning a lesson, I
also recommend that you limit your screencast to a couple of topics at a
time. For instance we recently did a project on respiration, but I didn't put
everything about respiration into one screencast. Instead, I broke it up into
several different ones to make it easier for the students to digest. And my fourth
tip is to anticipate the length of the note-taking. So, usually it takes students
about three to four times as long to take notes as it does to actually watch
the screencast. So, a five-minute screencast might take anywhere from 15
to 25 minutes for a kid to actually watch and take notes. This final tip, number
five, is actually courtesy of my bio 400 class. They said that they really like
it when I color coordinate between the screencasts and the handouts that I give them.
So, for instance, every time I use ATP, which is a biological molecule, I always
use the same symbol and that's the same symbol that they see on their tests as
well as on their handouts in class. Thanks for watching everybody!