Ken Clark, Judi Repman and Beth Downs

Georgia Southern University

COMO, October 2008

What is a Helplet?

• A short (ideally less than 4 minutes) video based demonstration of the steps involved in a process
• Uses screen capture software to clearly show the user the steps involved
• Audio provides an explanation of the steps and the thought process involved 

Examples:

• Screencasts Online (screencasts for the Mac; some content at this site requires fee-based membership)
• My Screencast.com
• Screencasts: Mathematica in the classroom (high school math examples)
• How to Create a Screencast (using Screencast-O-Matic)
• Tour del.icio.us (a similar screencast for middle/high school students can be seen here)
• Primary Source Search in the Library Catalog
• Google Tips: Find Music and Movies (teacher Robert Griffith has many other examples here)
• Creating a Bibliography with Bibme
• 8th Grade Georgia Studies Resources (by Kris Woods)

Resources:

• 12 Screencasting Tools for Creating Video Tutorials
• Creating Video Tutorials with Free Screencasting Software
• Beth Kanter's Screencasting Primer (a screencast of the primer can be seen here)
• What is Screencasting? (nice presentation of potential uses of screencasting)
• 7 Things You Should Know About Screencasting 

Utilizing Helplets Effectively

• Plan - Identify audience and objectives
• Search - Preproduced helplets OR
• Produce - Your own to meet specific needs
• Organize - Determine effective strategies for user access
• Follow-up - Helplets serve as ideal follow-up and quick reminders 

Examples of Commercially Produced Helplets:

• Windows Movie Maker
• SmartBoard Tutorials
• PowerPoint 2007
• Apple iTunes

Software:

     Free    

• Cam Studio (Windows)
• Screencast-o-matic (no install required; many examples at this site too)
• ScreenToaster
• Wink (Windows)

     Fee-Based

• Impatica (Windows; free trial available)
• Camtasia Studio (Windows; free trial available;manual is available as a pdf here)
• Wondershare Demo Creator (free trial available)
• Screencast.com (60 day free trial available;web-based product)
• Adobe Captivate (Windows; free trial available)
• BBFlashBack Express (Windows; free trial available)
• SnapzProX (Mac; free demo available)
• iShowU (Mac)

Copy of the presentation ppt in pdf format helplets.pdf