Friday, October 31

8 Free Screencasting Tools For Tony!

"Toast! Cut! Cam! Jing! Flow! Wink! You name it, they record it!"

"...I'm now back to searching for a free tool that works to create screencasts that I can use for my blog. I don't do it very often, so it needs to be free. The best thing would be if I could also do it while recording voice from myself and someone else. In other words a screen sharing tool with voice and screen recording. And it needs to be low cost or free." - Tony Karrer

Here we go, Tony:
  • Screenr
    Create screencasts for your followers as easily as you tweet. Just click the record button and you'll have your ready-to-tweet screencast in seconds.

  • Flowgram
    A new communications platform that lets anyone package and share anything on the internet. A flowgram combines the advantages of slide presentations and screencasts with an interactive user experience that fully exploits the fact that almost all the information we might ever need is already on the web. Using the zero download Flowgram Maker, creators can assemble and annotate web pages, photographs, videos etc on any topic, and add a voice narrative which provides context, emotion and consistency.

  • FreeScreencast
    RECORD your screen, UPLOAD, and SHARE online with ease!

  • Jing
    Snap a picture of anything on your desktop. Record a video of what you do, or what you see, Instantly uploaded. Share in email, IM, or blogs.

  • Webinaria
    Create and share software demos online with their screen recording/ screencast software.

  • ScreenToaster
    Is a free online screen recorder, enabling you to record your screen activity, publish the video on the Internet, and stream the recorded video in Flash.

  • WebKut
    Is an AIR application that allows you to capture web pages, or parts of them in a very simple way. It provides you 3 capture options: the entire page, the current view, or only a selection.

  • CamStudio
    Enables you to record all screen and audio activity on your computer and create industry-standard AVI video files and using its built-in SWF Producer can turn those AVIs into bandwidth-friendly Streaming Flash videos (SWFs) .

  • Wink
    A Tutorial and Presentation creation software, primarily aimed at creating tutorials on how to use software (like a tutor for MS-Word/Excel etc).

Tony is already using Jing, which means that there are another seven for him to explore. Hm, I am pretty sure that Tony is familiar with most of the tools suggested here, but are you?

Have fun exploring free screencasting tools! If you got any other free cool screencasting software to suggest, show me the URL. And then...

As a result of this wonderful learning conversation (comments) and exploration (adventure), we have discovered several more free screencasting tools, which are:
  • Screenjelly
    Records your screen activity with your voice so you can spread it as a video via Twitter or email. Use it to quickly share cool apps or software tips, report a bug, or just show stuff you like.

  • Screencast-O-Matic
    Is a Java-based application that anyone can use to create screencasts of their screen with no additional software to download. Without even registering to the site, you can record anything that happens on your screen just by setting the capture size, choose if you want audio included, and click go. When done, you can publish the screencast online or download it in .mov format. Free to use.

  • uTIPu
    Record and share your screen in a video. You get unlimited public video sharing, 250MB private video sharing, and you can upload directly from TipCam.

  • Capture Fox - Firefox Add-on
    You can capture your screen and record your voice to make screencasts (tutorials, e-lessons, etc.).

  • oRipa Screen Recorder
    Is a handy tool to record your Windows desktop activities in real time and save it as a video file. oRipa Screen Recorder also captures anything you can hear on your PC, such as, music and talking through the PC's microphone.

  • ISU (I Show You)
    Is a free software for Windows platforms that enables you to easily record a sequence of operations in real-time as you perform them on your screen. After the screencasting session ends, you can edit your recording by drawing on it, adding notes, or recording a voice over narration. When done, you can send it to your friends via email, messenger or any other application.

  • Debut
    Is a free screen capturing software for Windows that anyone can use to capture video or still images from any device. The setup comes in just 400kb and, after you install it, you can capture any part of your screen, or even capture videos from a webcam. You can export the video in any format and save the screenshots in JPG format. Debut is completely free to download and use.

  • 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.

And if that is not enough, Nico Canali De Rossi and Luigi Canali De Rossi (aka Robin Good) has done a great job in comparing many of these screencasting tools mentioned above (comparison table), enabling us hopefully to make a wiser and quicker choice. In addition, as a result of exploring their great post (2nd November), I discovered another interesting tool called Tablefy. This tool enables people to easily publish and compare their data online (dynamic comparison tables). The irony of this whole learning adventure is that their post was published a few days earlier than mine (27nd October, 2008) , meaning if I had found it earlier, it would have saved me...

But then again, we might have missed out on some of the screencasting tools not mentioned yet in their post.

In short, learning and discovering together and apart makes a screencasting lot of sense :)

18 comments:

Nic Mobbs said...

Thanks for these tools - I've been looking for this sort of thing too!

ZaidLearn said...

Nic Mobbs,

Thanks for thanking! And thanks for sharing your blog with me (indirectly).

I like your "Creating + Collaborating + Communicating = Possibilities" slogan.

I have added your blog to my EduBlogs collection:

http://delicious.com/zaidlearn/Edublogs

Have a great weekend learning!

Warm Regards,

Zaid

Tony Karrer said...

Zaid - thanks for pulling this together. I'm going to go check them out.

Gabriel Rodriguez said...

You can also try www.utipu.com great program and it FREE.

Clint Lalonde said...

If you use Firefox, there is a great little FF addon called Capture Fox that does screencasts. About the easiest tool I've used. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/8090

Geof Dudding said...

Tony mentioned recording his voice AND someone else's, this is something I've struggled with setting up. I assume he means a voice call, not too people sitting around the same microphone :-)

Any thoughts on tools that allow you to phone someone with your VoIP client, for example, then record both your voices while also capturing the screen?

Geof.

ZaidLearn said...

Dear Geoffrey,

thanks for the great feedback and question.

As for screencasting or recording while having a couple or more duds discussing what is happening, I suppose that can be done with most commercial virtual classrooms (screen-sharing feature).

As for free virtual classrooms, I believe DimDim has that feature:
http://www.dimdim.com/

Check their feature speck :)

Also, you might want to explore WiZiQ (http://www.wiziq.com/), but I didn't find that feature there. Hopefully I am wrong on that :)

Have fun exploring :)

Warm Regards,

Zaid

ZaidLearn said...

Dear Gabriel,

Thanks for sharing uTIPu with us :)

I have added it to the free screencasting tools list:

http://delicious.com/zaidlearn/Screencasting

Cheers!

Zaid

ZaidLearn said...

Dear Clint,

Thanks for sharing Capture Fox with us :)

Now we have 10 free screencasting tools here to explore. WOW! Well, if you don't use Firefox it is nine. But, since I use Firefox, I consider it 10 :)

Cheers!

Warm Regards,

Zaid

ZaidLearn said...

Hi All,

I just found this great post on screencasting tools, which includes a wonderful comparison table, enabling us to make a wiser decision before using:

http://www.masternewmedia.org/2008/10/27/14/index.htm

Luckily I didn't waste my time doing something similar (reinvent the wheel) :)

Also, I have discovered 5 more free screencasting tools, which I will add to the free list, exactly now.

Thanks Nico Canali De Rossi for making our life easier when it comes to screencasting tools :)

Warm Regards,

Zaid

Geek said...

Thanks for these tools.Very useful.

Unknown said...

I've been putting together some resources for faculty interested in podcasting/screencasting, including a chart of screencasting utilities at noshrinkwrap.com. So far, I've listed 45 applications with only a few of the compared feature I intend to include. Eventually, I'll also include reviews for recommended apps.

If you have suggestions, feedback or recommendations, I'd love to hear them!

Thanks,
Cris

BrewerDan said...

Might be of interest to you guys that we have a free version of our screen recording tool, DemoWorks. The free version is full featured, but outputs only 30 second videos. Check it out at www.doctohelp.com

admin@officesessions.com said...

I found out about WINK software from this website. It is similar to demobuilder which was used to create short video tutorials in swf format. Without narration, I could squeeze a large screencast in very small SWF files which is suitable for slow internet connections. See some examples at http://www.officesessions.com.
The wonderful thing about WINK is it is free.
Need to try it if it is any good.

Adward said...

ISU (I Show You) Version 1.60 is shareware not freeare. But the funtion is OK. Some other shareware like DemoCreator could be also helpful for screencasting, especially nice for tutorials making.

Russell said...

Oh my gosh I have been looking for something like ScreenToaster for Ages you are a live saver you can check my blog out at techkid08.info

Unknown said...

I also have a list of screencast software including recorders, tools and editors for Win/Mac/Lin over at The Screencasting Handbook.

Unknown said...

To create quality demos you need screen recording software which will produce small sized, crystal clear videos. I use My Screen Recorder Pro for over 4 years for my tutorials and blogs. Works excellent.