Camtasia Tutorial 1st attempt (video at the bottom of the page).

I find it most effective for me to learn a new skill or technology while completing a meaningful practical task. What is presented at this page is the result of me trying and finding a way to get about Camtasia authoring tool. I chose to make a video-tutorial for the board game MonsterStop! because I know it better that anyone else, and it has a very special meaning to me, you bet, me being its inventor.

Was like in the books: first, I wrote the narrative, in several drafts – it took about four or five edits. It was getting shorter from draft to draft, and hopefully, more succint and concise. Then I had an online text-to-speech service produce an MP3 file from the script. I am not quite happy with the result – it is a bit flat and unnatural, and probably Google cloud AI would have done better, but for the sake of trial I chose a simple and free Java-based application. Anyway, it is better than working with your own voice. Hearing yourself speak the same stuff over and over again can drive anyone crazy.

For my situation it seemed unnecessarily laboursome. As I was not going to share it with anyone, after a couple of scenes that I had made in detail, I kept the storyboard as a rough planning sheet.

Then I prepared the assets for the video, like close-ups of the game pieces, different angle shots of the board itself and a couple of videos of rolling dice.  Eventually I had to add to my asset library, but generally, I had done good preparation work.

I believe that I used almost all tools on offer in Camtasia, except the interactivity ones, but I just have saved them for later. My next step will be to add in-video quizes, formative assessment and a final test to check if the learner has indeed acquired the necessary knowledge which will later transform into the skill of an invincible guru of MonsterStop!

I’m just joking – the game is not rocket science, however, I am determined to make the next iteration of the tutorial as interactive and educational as possible, meeting the highest ID standards.