6/15/2009

I am trying to find a way to make educational screencasts without spending a huge amount of time or money on video production. Some of the YouTube educational videos I have been watching seem to have a very simple “moving pen on a black background,” which would meet my needs. I’m thinking that would be a good way of getting started, at least. My new friend Patrick, whom I met yesterday at a dinner party, sends an e-mail about Yacapaca, which I had never heard of before. Sounds like a collection of assessment tools that, when taken together, could give Blackboard a run for its money. With a bit of Googling I also find a link for LectureScribe, freeware written by a computer science professor at Clemson, Dr. Brian Dean, who won a teaching award and presented a paper on his program. I’ll have to download that and check it out, but first I need to get a digitizer tablet (pen tablet), since my mousing skills are pathetically inept when it comes to handwriting.