Comment on Convention Preserving Refactorings by Laura Creighton

Tue, 23 Oct 2007 13:01:39 -0700

1. If you try to leave a comment on the 'on screencasts' blog entry, everything dies a horrible death. This one works. How odd.
2. Something to think about when you are considering screencasts. There are some people, and I am one of them, who finds it particularly difficult to learn anything by listening to somebody talk or make a presentation. If I already know something of the topic, then I can follow along, and perhaps learn one or two new details, but if I am starting from complete ignorance, then I really don't want a lecture. I want a book. Or some examples and a computer to play with. Anything but a 'talking head'. Some screencasts simply duplicate the experience I found most frustrating at school. Even when a screencast is excellent, I really benefit from the ability to read a written transcript of what is said before I listen to the screencast. I do not think that I am typical, but I don't think that I am all that unusual, either. Thank you for reading, Laura Creighton

Comment on Convention Preserving Refactorings by Nicholas Chen

Sat, 03 Nov 2007 21:49:50 -0700

Thanks Laura for the comment!

I am not sure why the blog system decided to die on you when posting to the previous article. I disable comments after 14 days but it should just prevent you from posting and not blow up.

I completely agree with what you say about screencasts. I will definitely consider a text transcript as a useful supplement to a screencast.

It was one of my patterns to make a screencast audio/no audio. I think that it is not a good idea to depend on audio too much especially if the screencast is more useful without it. I have two reasons for this: 1) making proper audio is hard - you need a good microphone and a quiet environment. Without those conditions, the audio is more distracting rather than useful. 2) my screencasts are usually for students who need to refer to them in computer labs where there are no speakers. So unless they bring their own headphones, the screencast is not going to be that useful.

Additionally, another pattern that might address some of your concerns would be making segments for longer screencasts. That way you can easily fast forward to the relevant sections without having to hear the entire screencast from beginning to end. And those sections should be created to be standalone independent sections so that you can easily flip back to them.

.::output >> /dev/null::. : Convention Preserving Refactorings

Comment on Convention Preserving Refactorings by Laura Creighton

Comment on Convention Preserving Refactorings by Nicholas Chen