Round 8.4 Wrap-Up

Mar 25, 2014 • Greg Wilson

Software Carpentry Instructor Training
Round 8.4: Screencasts
Thursday, March 20, 2014

See http://teaching.software-carpentry.org/category/round-8-4/ for screencasts so far.

Questions

  • How long did it take to create your screencast? How long would it take to re-create?
  • What would have made the screencast easier to create?
  • How do you think your screencast teaching style is like or unlike your live teaching style?
  • If you could send a tweet back in time three weeks, what would you tell yourself to do or not do?

Worth thinking about:

19:00

  • Greg Wilson (Mozilla, Toronto): no screencast
  • Chris Friedline (VCU, Richmond, VA): http://teaching.software-carpentry.org/2014/03/18/ssh-public-key-authentication-to-internal-ipython-notebook/
    • Time to create ~3 hrs, time to recreate maybe ~30 min
    • Easier — I went through several iterations without an outline, thinking I could wing it. An outline made it much easier.
    • Style — I think it’s the same
    • Heh — don’t try to wing it and get organized first. It’s not easy to create a polished screencast. Also, QuickTime, though free, is not necessarily awesome for creating screencasts like this, where dynamic focus on what’s happening on screen would make things more engaging and clear.
  • Benjamin Bradshaw (Austin, TX): http://teaching.software-carpentry.org/2014/03/19/6390/
    • Creation: ~3-4 hours. My initial topic proved too long and too complicated by a long shot. So I had to change my topic to something simpler to explain in 3 minutes. 30 minutes to recreate.
    • Ease: I think getting some more experience with creating screencasts would enable me to plan better.
    • Style: I tend to want to engage people to understand where they are coming from. It was difficult for me to not be able to gauge my audience’s understanding in real time.
    • Tweet: 3 minutes is very short! Choose something simpler.
  • Sheldon McKay (Reactome, New York): http://teaching.software-carpentry.org/2014/03/19/screencast-file-redirection-in-the-unix-shell/
    • About 2 hours working through content, about 4 hours practicing and recording. Could recreate in an hour or so
    • Taking a typing course about 15 years ago; learning to tolerate small errors
    • I think it is similar to my teaching style but differs in that I got to redo things when I made an error and in real-life I pause to ask questions
    • Don’t practice so much, do it in one take
  • Martin Paulo (Melbourne, Australia):
    • http://teaching.software-carpentry.org/2014/03/11/screencast-the-new-heat-beta-service/
    • Time to create: ~ 3 hours as well, time to recreate: also about ~30 minutes…
    • Easier to create: Creating a rough script to more or less follow.
    • Style: In the screencast I’m concentrating on the computer and what I’m doing. I’d like to think that were I teaching I’d be concentrating on the students and what they were doing. For those parts where I had to demonstrate via actions on the computer to the students I might be closer to the screencast style, but I’d like to think I’d still be checking on them, to see if they are following along. Of course, this might annoy them a little :)
    • Tweet: Write a rough script covering what you want to do first (100-150 words per minute)
  • Daniel Chen (Mailman School of Public Health): http://teaching.software-carpentry.org/2014/03/20/screencast-installing-windows-xp-in-a-vm-using-virtualbox/
    • probably around 3 hours? if i did it the same exact way, maybe 1 hour, if i wanted to do it the way i want to, maybe 3 hours (want to use a different program — lightworks)
    • if i knew openshot was just buggy and knew of another alternative sooner, i spent a good 30 minutes just dealing with the constant app crashing, until i realized it was not worth it, and decided to start over after finding a different app to use
    • I think I actually talk more in real life, give more details about what is going on, give more hints, etc. the screen cast given it’s time restriction (and due date) I skipped over a lot of my recorded audio
    • openshot is broken, use kdenlive; also for some reason you need to either plug in a combojack splitter to use just a microphone, or use a headset with an in-line mic in it. damn linux and hardware compatibility issues. And just learn lightworks since this isn’t the first time you did video editing. also listen to the audio after you noise reduce, the current recording was not completely void of nice, and the audio cuts is very obvious. this is obviously longer than 140 characters.
  • Brenna O’Brien (HackerYou, Toronto) http://teaching.software-carpentry.org/2014/03/12/screencast-how-to-fork-a-github-repo/
    • took about 2.5 hours to create, would guess 30 min to recreate
    • rehearsing all the way through instead of re-starting from the top every time I made a minor error would make the process more efficient, especially because i had a lot of techinical ‘resetting’ to do each time I restarted
    • mostly similar, but i deal with mistakes better live because I’m forced to and don’t have the opportunity to re-record
    • i would tell myself to not worry so much about small errors and making the screencast perfect
  • Evan Bianco (Agile Geoscience) http://teaching.software-carpentry.org/2014/03/19/screencast-make-better-plots-using-matplotlibs-figure-and-axes-objects/
    • Time to create: ~ 3 hours (1 hour on paper, 2 hours coordinating, driving, and doing it), 25 minutes to re-create.
    • Easier to create: Scripting out the scripting, and not deviating from it
    • Back three weeks: Practice (rehearse) doing the same thing over an over again before hitting the record button. I got tangled up in my concept map.
  • Joon Ro (Austin, TX) http://teaching.software-carpentry.org/2014/03/11/screencast-how-to-manage-bib-files-in-a-central-location-for-texlive-with-mendeley/
    • Time to create: About an hour, including coming up with the idea. Screencast only, about 30 minutes. Recreating, it would take 15 minutes (screencast only), mainly due to I got hang of it.
    • What would have made the screencast easier to create?: I did not know that I should pause after each segment.
    • How do you think your screencast teaching style is like or unlike your live teaching style?: I think it was similar
    • If you could send a tweet back …: 1) You can record your screencast by sections! Use pause so you don’t have to start over from the beginning 2) Also, you can use slides along with live sessions
  • Brad Taber-Thomas (Penn State, PA) http://teaching.software-carpentry.org/2014/03/20/screencast-loops-in-the-unix-shell/
    • Time: about 45 minutes, plus about an hour of thinking/planning on the bus and in the shower; would take about 10 minutes to recreate (setup, out-takes, etc.)
    • Easier: if someone had just given me the topic and script! Deciding what to do it on was the hardest part. I ended up going to the SWC lesson on loops and using ideas from there to organize and simplify my script
    • Screencast was much more succinct than live; I couldn’t waste any words. I also planned much more because of that, actually coming up with a full script, which I don’t think I’ve ever done for live teaching (I usually just do outlines, and then practice orating them)
    • Tweet back in time: just do the video on the first thing that popped into my head.
  • Likit Preeyanon http://teaching.software-carpentry.org/2014/03/12/screencast-how-to-use-vim-buffers/
    • Time to create about an hour.
    • I think my screencast is similar to my teaching style.
    • Making an outline and a script helps, in terms of wording, flow and time.
    • I’d tweet to tell myself to give a better introduction on why people should care about my screen cast.
  • Andrea Zonca http://teaching.software-carpentry.org/2014/03/12/setup-github-travisci-build-software-carpentry/
    • it took 1 (compiling and testing screencast software) +2 hours, now it would take 1 hour I guess, depends on how good we want to have it
    • easier if more flexible on timing, it took long time to reduce to 3 min
    • I think it is pretty similar if I am teaching some procedure
    • Andrea, just use Windows! also write down a summary first

14:00

  • Greg Wilson (Mozilla, Toronto): no screencast
  • Gabriel Devenyi (McMaster, Hamilton): http://teaching.software-carpentry.org/2014/03/19/screencast-introduction-to-the-terminal/
    • Total time of preparation was 1-day thought on topic, 30 minutes or so of defining all the components, then 2 hours of trying to fit all the components in 3 minutes
    • Re-creation would take a lot less time, once you know what you want to say, it’s just a matter of not screwing up the presentation
    • Tools to do a side-by-side slideshow, and perhaps a way to annotate the video afterwards
    • I greatly dislike screencasting, I don’t like hearing myself talk… also, zero feedback from an audience is very disconcerting
    • Start your video earlier so you could do the topic that you did for all the other assignments
  • Matt Hall (Agile Geoscience, Nova Scotia): http://teaching.software-carpentry.org/2014/03/15/screencast-grabbing-data-from-wikipedia-using-python/
    • The one I settled on was the second one I tried, and each one took at least a couple of hours. Recreating one would not take too long — I definitely had the set-up and workflow down by the end (script, windows, mic, QuickTime, etc)
    • Having a good feel for what one can (or should) reasonably accomplish in 3 minutes wasm in retrospect, the thing that slowed me down the most I think. I was very happy to be late enough that I could learn from some early contributions (David, Brenna, Jessica especially).
    • I think my screencast persona is close to my classroom persona. Maybe a bit more self-conscious and more serious sounding.
    • Do less. Find another room. Stop not doing it.
  • Brian Miles (UNC-CH) http://teaching.software-carpentry.org/2014/03/12/screencast-conceptual-overview-of-rhessysworkflows/
    • 4 hours
    • Knowing how to use iMovie to edit together my clips
    • More practiced
    • Start with less material for my first script
  • Jessica Hamrick (UC Berkeley): http://teaching.software-carpentry.org/2014/03/12/screencast-creating-a-git-repository/
    • I think it took me 1-1.5 hours or so to make it. I had played around with screencasting before though so I didn’t have to deal with overcoming any technical hurdles. It would probably take me about 15 minutes to recreate.
    • Hmmm, not too much would have made it easier, I think. The part that took the longest was working out a rough script and practicing it, which would probably take about the same amount of time regardless.
    • With a screencast, I can do it a couple of times to make sure it’s concise and that the point I’m making is coherent. Not always the case in front of a live audience — a lot of times I have to restart my explanation once or twice.
    • Maybe to try planning out a rough sequence of videos that I would do to cover a broader range of topics, which would then make it easier to pinpoint exactly what material to include in this screencast. It would be a lot more work, but I think would ultimately lead to better organization.
  • David Schryer (University of Tartu): http://teaching.software-carpentry.org/2014/03/14/simple-creation-of-namedtuple-containers/
    • It took some time to get both the screencasting software and external sound capture to work, but melding them together was easier than I expected. Composing the screencast took about 40 minutes. The next one should be quite straightforward ~ 20 minutes.
    • Experience :) This was my first one.
    • I understand that the audience is able to pause and replay sections so I tried to shorten the text and include only the most important details.
    • I would remind myself to watch out for demotivating statements.
  • Rob Beagrie (Imperial College, London): http://teaching.software-carpentry.org/2014/03/17/screencast-aggregation-in-sql/
    • Timing: trying to think of a way to fit something more interesting into 3 minutes — 2-3 hours, planning once I resigned myself to SQL — 15 minutes, making/uploading recording — 1 hour. Redoing would probably be quicker next time, the big hurdle is judging what will fit into 3 minutes.
    • I used SimpleScreenRecorder in ubuntu, which was pretty simple (does what it says on the box). I wanted to edit it a little bit more after I was finished but I couldn’t find a simple, intuitive video editor for ubuntu and gave up after about 15 minutes.
    • I think I was less expressive/engaging on the screencast. I like to try to use gestures/eye contact when teaching live to boost my enthusiam level
    • Three minutes is not much time — only try to teach 2-3 concepts/ideas
  • Matthias Bussonnier (Institut Curie, Paris)
    • I took me around 45 minutes (plus a lot of thinking while commuting)
    • ability to reset all my browsers tabs/app window to a certain state (I know its possible didn’t searchd for it)
    • teaching style very different prefer direct feedback
    • Tweet back in time:
      • Get a english localized computer people don’t read french in the menu.
      • Don’t think you won’t be disturbed in your office for more that 10 min.
      • Don’t try to do a screencast when you are sick and almost can’t speak,
  • Mark Stacy (University of Oklahoma): http://teaching.software-carpentry.org/2014/03/17/python-pandas-dataframe-3min-screencast/
    • Timing: 2-3 hours: I was trying to cover to much material. 4 versions
    • Make easier: I think if I prepared the script before hand. Limit the information
    • Style: similar, hard to get feedback when doing video. Live you get feedback on understanding.
    • Send Feeback: Techincal issues mic volume and zoom in to make more visible

10:00

  • Greg Wilson (Mozilla, Toronto): no screencast
  • Jeramia Ory http://teaching.software-carpentry.org/2014/03/18/screencast-using-for-loop-to-renaming-files-in-bash/
    • Mulling over topic = 1 day, 3 run throughs + planning = ~20 minutes
    • Camtasia is pretty good, no suggestions
    • Ironically more personable with screencast? I don’t have to project as much and go into my “teaching voice”
    • Just do it, pick a trick/hack that’s common to you, beginners probably don’t know it! (confident in unix skills, still struggle with CS imposter syndrome)
  • Anne Moroney http://teaching.software-carpentry.org/2014/03/05/screencastmotivation-value-of-tdd-for-refactorrename/
    • Took like 4 hours I think, 4th run through I think it was. To recreate if I knew how little I would put in would only be say 20min or less.
    • The tools were fine. I wished I had the mouse-highlighter tool, can I hear what that is? +1
    • Screencast style as I did it was maybe same as normal except I tried to focus on a nice voice — and amazingly I got a compliment on that!
    • Recall that it’s ~5:1 bandwidth of writing:speaking.
  • Dana Miller http://teaching.software-carpentry.org/2014/03/20/screencast-an-introduction-to-vim-2/ (see also https://twitter.com/dam/status/446323090612420608 )
    • Creation: Used Camtasia (worked fine), about three hours (after deciding topic)
    • Easier: Easier to create if you are not learning the recording tool at the same time you are recording the video. Future videos would be faster, but planning the content would probably still need more time than expected!
    • Style: Conscious of trying to speak more clearly, and without repetition, but also rushing to stay under the time limit. If teaching one-on-one, I tend to use more informal language.
    • Tweet: Recording youself live coding while talking is even harder than that sounds — can be useful but take practice +careful scope
  • Stephen Turner http://teaching.software-carpentry.org/2014/03/17/screencast-pushing-to-github/
    • Creation: once i picked a topic, about an hour or two. To recreate the same (more limited) topic, probably 15 minutes.
    • Easier: would have been easier if I had properly scoped the problem first. First few attempts were way too broad.
    • Style: unfortunately I felt my screencast was rushed — I was not able to leave any time for “who has a question about this” or “raise your hand if you’re having trouble”. I just had to assume everyone was following.
    • Tweet: “Keep it simple — don’t try to cover too much in three minutes”
  • JC Leyder: http://teaching.software-carpentry.org/2014/03/06/screencast-improving-the-behaviour-of-the-up-and-down-arrows-in-bash/
    • Creation: a few minutes to pick the topic, then a few hours of experimenting (including getting familiar with the recording software); the next one would probably take less time; recreating would take less than 30 minutes
    • Easier to create: I spent some time tweaking a new user so that there would be minimal distractions; again, the next similar screencast would be easier.
    • Teaching style: I tried to keep it as close as possible to the way I normally show things (including typos, and checking often the status)
    • Tweet back in time: “A one page script will give about 6 minutes of screencast”
  • Abigail Cabunoc: http://teaching.software-carpentry.org/2014/03/18/screencast-initialize-git-repo-simple-workflow/
    • Creation: about an hour from opening Camtasia to exporting to youtube. Longer if you count the time I took planning — maybe an extra 30?
    • Easier: If I had a more complete script before I started recording — instead of finalizing my script by recording repeatedly
    • Teaching style: I tried to make it closer to my live teaching style than other screencasts I’ve done. One of the reasons I tried including the webcam.
    • Tweet: Make sure your roommates aren’t having a party when you decide to make the screencast.

Graduation Exercise

  • Pick a topic
  • Fork the GitHub repo at http://github.com/swcarpentry/bc
  • Create and submit a lesson as a pull request
  • Review each other’s pull requests
  • When it’s done (enough), pick a time to teach live online to other instructors
    • Time: Up to 10 min, shorter is fine
  • Goals:
    • Have you create something
    • Familiarize you with our tools and workflow
    • Introduce you to the instructor community