CamStudioby SchoolForge updated November 23, 2011
CamStudio is able to record all screen and audio activity on your computer.

Software Details

CamStudio is able 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 lean, mean, bandwidth-friendly Streaming Flash videos (SWFs)

Requirements

Operating system: Windows

Reviews

2
Great tool for lecture recording and teacher training
4
Average: 4 (1 vote)

Here are several scenarios where a screen recorder might be useful.
- Teach online and need some recorded lectures.
- Need tutorial videos for students to review and help them finish their assignments at home.
- Need tutorial videos for parents to learn how to monitor their children’s grades/learning progresses through some online system.
- Need training videos to show teachers how to use a new learning management system or any new software that the school/district starts to implement.
- Ask students to submit a self-recorded video to demonstrate their skills of searching academic information or the skills of using certain software.

CamStudio can be a sufficient tool for all the above uses. It allows users to record their full screen, a program window, or a certain area of the screen. Users can record their audio at the same time through a microphone. The recording video can be compressed into avi, mp4, or swf format. CamStudio also offers many useful options, for example:
- whether or not showing your cursor movements - for example, when recording a slideshow, one probably doesn’t want the cursor to be running around on the screen;
- autopan that enables the recording area to follow your cursor so that the cursor doesn’t run out of the recording screen;
- and adding a wartermark to the recording.

For many schools, these features are enough to fulfill the needs. The most mentioned disadvantage of CamStudio is that it doesn’t support video editing. However, there are video editing software including some open source ones, such as Avidemux, that support simple editing tasks like cropping, re-encoding, and resizing. In addition, many busy educators do not have time for complex video editing anyway. What I like the most about CamStudio is its intuitive design. Users don’t need too much struggle to figure out for what each menu item can be used. For example, each button on the menu bar shows a blurb that explains its function when the cursor hovers on it.

The biggest downside to me is that CamStudio only runs under Windows OSs. It does run under Windows 8, though this version is not mentioned on the download page. However, I’m disappointed that it doesn’t have a Mac or Linux version. Non-cross-platform creates a serious barrier for many teachers to use it in their classrooms. For example, teachers may need to re-consider whether they’d like to ask students to use this piece of software for their homework. What if some of their students do not have Windows OS in their home computers?

Another minor issue is that using CamStudio does require a bit advanced knowledge (or patience). For example, the defaulted recording video format is avi, but the defaulted compressor doesn’t support avi… Users have to go to the video option to manually choose the codec. If one has never even heard of the term “codec”, it can be a little overwhelming.

Other than these two, I think CamStudio can be a perfect tool for any educational settings.

Excellent Screencasting Tool
0
No votes yet

Camstudio is an open source screen recording tool. I’ve recorded screencast tutorials in the past and users that I have shared them with have found them very helpful. We live in a society dependant on video tutorials. Many teachers and students seek answers and instructions from You Tube regularly. So why not produce some of the instructional content? Why not encourage our students to give back to the digital world some of their own expertise?

Camstudio is a perfect tool for this that can be used in schools with little training. I downloaded this program on a PC with ease. When the program opened after downloading, I did not find it intuitive so I went to You Tube to find tutorials. I found a variety of them and looked for a something that was aimed toward beginners and was about 15 minutes in length. The online tutorials were very helpful. It’s funny that you have to watch on a screencast to learn how to screencast.

One program highlight is the cursor options. You can add a glow to your cursor when doing instructional videos or make your cursor completely disappear when doing presentations. You can also chose to record your whole screen or just a portion of it. When you select just a portion, the window that is being recorded will display a flashing box so you can tell exactly what area you are recording in. Plus, if you have a dual screen computer set-up, you can chose to record both screens.

While I do not have extensive screencasting experience, I would give this open source tool 5 out of 5 stars. I believe it has all the basic features required for screencasting and you can learn what you need to get started by watching quick You Tube video tutorials.