Web 2.0 Wednesday: Tools for Screencasts!

Welcome back to the school year! We are going to kick off this year with a giant helping of screencast resources. You can use screencasts for all kinds of things: recording powerpoint presentations, making video tutorials for your students, etc.

Want some other ideas about screencasting? Check out the Screencasting Handbook website.

In keeping with our Web 2.0 theme - some of these tools will be free; but others may have a cost. In the descriptions below, I will identify the free vs cost and also web based vs. windows vs. mac.

Enjoy and Welcome Back

FREE - NO DOWNLOAD

• Screenjelly – NO Download - all web based! FREE. According to the website: "Screenjelly records your screen activity with your voice so you can spread it via Twitter or email. Use it to quickly share cool apps or software tips, report a bug, or just show stuff you like. To start recording, click on the red button. No need to install or download anything"

• Screenr – NO Download - all web based! FREE. According to the website: "Web-based recorder-nothing to download. Record on your Mac or PC. Plays everywhere on the web, even iPhones. Start now-it's completely FREE."
  ScreenCastle – NO Download - all web based! FREE. According to the website: "to launch the screencast recorder and record a screencast directly from you browser, please click the button on the right." It doesn't get much easier than that!
• Screencast-O-Matic - NO Download - all web based! FREE. According to the website: "Screencast-O-Matic is the original online screen recorder for creating screen capture video recordings (aka screencasts) with free hosting all from your browser with no install!"
• Screen Toaster - NO Download - all web based! FREE. According to the website: "Register & use it anywhere, anytime. No download. Compatible with Windows, Mac OS X, Linux. Capture videos of onscreen action in one click. Record screencasts, tutorials, demos, training, lectures and more. Share and stream videos online in Flash. Embed them on blogs and webpages or send them by email"

DOWNLOAD

• AVIScreen - FREE; Windows. According to the website: "AviScreen is an application for capturing screen activity (ScreenCast) in the form of AVI video or images. Beside the usual options defining the capture area, AviScreen has a unique feature called “follow the cursor”. Using this mode you can produce a video or image of relatively small dimensions while covering all mouse activity over the whole screen area."
• Jing – Windows or MAC; FREE Version or Pro Version, Pro - $14.95/year. According to the website: "Take a picture or make a short video of what you see on your computer monitor. Share it instantly via web, email, IM, Twitter or your blog. Simple and free, Jing is the perfect way to enhance your fast-paced online conversations."

• Screen Flow – MAC; Free Trial, $99 to buy. According to the website: "With ScreenFlow screencasting software, you can capture the contents of your entire desktop at the same time as your video camera, microphone and computer's audio. Sophisticated editing tools allow you to create incredible screencasts in no time.The finished result is a QuickTime or Windows Media movie, ready for publishing to your website or blog."
• SnapZpro – MAC; Free Trial, $69 to buy. According to the website: "Snapz Pro X allows you to effortlessly record anything on your screen, saving it as a QuickTime® movie or screenshot that can be e-mailed, put up on the web, or passed around however you want."
• Camtasia Studio – Windows or MAC; Free Trial, $299.00 to buy. According to the website: "Camtasia Studio gives you the power to easily record your screen, PowerPoint presentations, voice, and Web camera video to create compelling video tutorials, training presentations, and rich sales demonstrations for Web and CD-ROM delivery."
• Screenium – MAC; $ 29 to buy. According to the website: "Record exactly what you see on your screen and make it a screencast. Whether you're tech support looking for a smart way of visually documenting the solution to a recurring problem, if you long to capture and distribute your university lectures or plain simply want to show the world your browser game high score via YouTube.com - Screenium will get out of your way and simply capture the video for you."
• Screen Flick – MAC; $25 to buy. According to the website: "Screenflick features high performance screen capturing for smooth, fluid motion up to 60 fps. Screenflick can record any portion of the screen, simultaneously recording audio from internal or external microphones and the system audio. An excellent utility for software screencasters and software trainers, Screenflick offers the ability to display keyboard commands, and highlights mouse clicks to better communicate which actions are being performed during screen recording. Unlike other solutions, Screenflick allows you to record a movie once and compress it as many times as you want at different resolutions, qualities, and with or without audio, offering you the maximum amount of flexibility when choosing which presentation options to offer to movie viewers."

Do you know of any other resources? Leave a comment.