Using Camtasia to create a portfolio entry

Camtasia is a fully featured system that lets you record the voice and screen in real time, and to produce a video in various formats from it (including a flash movie). You can then include this video in your web portfolio. Note that you can only do this on your own computer - we do not have it installed on our University computers.

Camtasia allows you to download a 30-day free trial. After the 30 day trial, you will not be able to use it again unless you buy a license. (Deleting and installing it again does not work).

NOTE: Some freeware equivalents are available, although unlikely as powerful.

Now back to Camtasia...

  1. Download Camtasia 5.0; you should also read the product overview tab on that page to see its features.
  2. Documentation / tutorials are available at Camtasia Learning Center. It will also suggest that you watch some documentation before you start - I suggest you do so, especially the overviews of the following topics:
    • Using the Recorder
    • How to Edit
    • How to Produce
    • How to Share
  3. Basic operation.
    1. From the startup dialog box, select New Screen Recording..
    2. Decide if you want to use SmartFocus, or a fixed screen size. Also decide if you want to record voice (to do a vocie over).
    3. In the effects menu, you probably want to select the opions for Sound/MouseClick Sounds and Sound/Keyboard Sounds, and for Cursor/Highlight Cursor & Clicks.
    4. Before you start, know what you are going to say and do. Practice it. This can save considerable time later when editing. I really mean this - a bad script can add several hours of editing time. Practice, practice, practice.
    5. Record it, and look at the preview. Don't be scared of throwing it away and trying again.
    6. If it makes sense to do so, do it as a set of several videos (or scenes) that can be played separately.
    7. After recording, edit as needed. Put in titles / captions / transitions as needed.
    8. Produce the video in web format
    9. Load it onto your web site. Make sure you have all the other portfolio entry completed, i.e., a good screen snapshot, etc. with an option to play the video. If you can, see if you can embed it into your own web page as a flash movie.