“So, how are you making all these Tablet PC tips?” Glad you asked! Tablet PC Tip #5 shows you how Techsmith’s Camtasia software makes it easy…

Camtasia is screen capture software that lets you record, edit, and share movies that are composed of everything that’s visible on your screen plus everything you say. A tablet pc plus an external mic makes a simple recording studio. Use a blue-tooth mic, like Professor Elkhaim at the University of California Santa Cruz, and you have even more freedom to “talk and sketch” (plus, let’s be honest, a blue-tooth mic has a much higher “cool” factor).

While Tablet PC tips #1, #2, #3, and #4 were recorded using Camtasia, I haven’t figured out how to show you Camtasia by using Camtasia. It’s not recording while you are configuring it, and it hides while you record. So, let me walk you through the steps using screen shots.

Camtasia has a lot of features and capabilities. I’m going to skip all the complexities and show you the fast and simple approach that I’m using to share quick explanations on my blog:

Step 1 – Open Camtasia Recorder and set the recording parameters.

You only need to do this once, as it will remember the settings for next time. The two settings are the Video format for capturing, and selecting the Audio source (so it uses your external mic instead of the mic built in to your tablet)

For the video format, I have been recording directly to AVI because YouTube likes AVI files. If you plan to do any editing in Camtasia Studio or if you want to output different formats later, use the native camrec format.

Step 2 – press F9 to start recording

The Camtasia Recorder applet will disappear, becoming a red/green flashing icon in the lower right hand corner of your screen, off camera)

Step 3 – Show, talk, annotate, whatever it is you want to share

Step 4 – Press F9 to pause recording; press stop to finish

Step 5 – Watch the preview; save it if you like it

Step 6 – If you want to produce another format, run select a post-save option and launch Camtasia Studio (I’m not going to walk you through this. Feel free to try mess around with it if you’d like – it’s really pretty easy)

Step 7 – Upload your AVI to YouTube; share the URL

You may also want to consider using Techsmith’s Screencast.com hosting service, if you want higher quality streaming or more control over who can access your content.

There are other tools available for doing screen cast recordings. If you have some experience using them, please post a comment with your recommendations!

The most interesting question, of course, is not how to MAKE recordings, but how to USE them instructionally (can lectures really become pre-reading, so class-time is discussion time instead?)

I look forward to your comments...