I spend a great deal of my time now moderating online teacher training courses to help teachers integrate ICT into their teaching. This means that a great deal of technical stuff is going on both from my end and at their end. Often problems can be solved by a quick exchange of e-mails. Sometimes adding screenshots is what it takes to solve a problem but recently I have found myself making more and more screencasts to show exactly what is happening on my computer when I go through a certain procedure. When I first started making screencasts a few years ago it meant downloading a program and often it would be very demanding of computer resources to run so your whole computer could easily lock up while you were in the middle of recording. Then it would take an age to process and it wasn’t always certain that the resultant file was usable or transportable.
Now there are several online screencasting tools available and they work like a dream. My two favourites are Screenr and Screen Toaster. On Screenr you are limited to a 5 minute recording but that is more than enough time in which to explain a basic procedure. With Screen Toaster you can add subtitles and even appear on your webcam. Both tools allow you to upload the video directly to YouTube.
Screencasts are also useful in my face to face classes, a subject called Communication and IT, during which my students find themselves trying to use various ICT tools for homework so there I make sure that the most important points are explained in a screencast for them.
From my point of view the main feature missing from these online screencast tools is the ability to zoom in to a specific part of the screen. Viewing in fullscreen is the best option.