Mistakes teach valuable lessons about screencasting

The most valuable thing that I learned through the mistakes I made in screencasting is the importance of planning in advance. Since I felt that I knew the subject area of my screencast, it seemed at first like a waste of time to write a script... that is until I made three or four recording attempts with no success. After that,the time writing the script seemed well spent.

I also realized that I needed to plan in advance where I was going to move the cursor, what items I was going to highlight or whether I was going to open another window or not. Leaving these things to be decided on an impromptu basis inevitably led to dead air on the video, a cursor that just zipped around the page aimlessly and a product that with which I was unhappy.

With some forethought and planning, screencasting can be a valuable tool to use for all kinds of tutorials and teaching aids and even for simple day to day among individuals with questions requiring explanations relating to forms, maps, catalogs, indexes, or any other documentation that can be found online.