Sketchcast

I got the opportunity to review this website after I was directed to it by a colleague a week ago. At first I have to say that I was not really impressed by the samples that they offer on their site homepage but kept an open mind. After doing a little bit of research through the site I can now say that I was wrong and the site does show signs of usefulness. The possibility of using in education is also a plus as teachers can use it to record quick videos and tutorials that their students can review over and over again. This is also something that can be done on any type of computer and even on your Interactive White Board (IWB).


So we need to now talk shop about the Sketchcast website. The site refers to this tool "a new way to express yourself." You can Explore the site a little bit so that you can get a look at what you can do by allowing you to see some examples of completed Sketchcasts. Currently there are 4 categories to choose from but I would have to guess that over time the number of categories will increase as more users go to the site.


You do have to register and create a login for the site, I know I know another username and password to keep up with. As I have always said make it simple so that you can keep up with it. The Registration screen has 7 items to fill out, very easy to do and once you are registered you get a URL address to your public site.


The description as provided by their website: "...Sketchcasting is a new way to communicate something online by recording a sketch, optionally with your voice speaking. Any sketch can then be embedded on your blog/ homepage for people to play-back, and you can also point people to your sketchcast channel here (or let them subscribe to your sketchcast RSS feed)."


Now you may be asking, how does it work? Really easily there are three steps to follow to create your final product. First you start by entering in the Title of your Sketchcast and start Recording. You have some features that are available to you in the ability to enter text and change color, write on the screen and import images. After you have recorded your Sketchcast you then have the opportunity to Preview what it looks like to see if you need to adjust or start over and record again. The last step is to Publish your final work, which gives you the option to make the product Public or Private. That's it you cannot get any more simplistic than that. Three steps and the most amount of work you have to do is the actual recording of the information that you want to create in your Sketchcast. Now that your product is finalized you have the option to allow it to either auto play or not as well as the embedding code so that you can take your Sketchcast and put it into your Wiki, Blog or even your own personal webpage.


How can you apply Sketchcast to your job? If you are in business this allows you to create a brainstorming strategy online and save it so that you can email it to your peers. If you are a teacher this can be a tool that allows you to record your daily instruction for students that are not in class so that they can review the material that was missed when they come back to class. Because you have the ability to embed this in a web space you can make this available to a broader population.


Try out Sketchcast and see what you think, for me it looks like it could be a great tool for creating quick information that can be shared instantly once the recording is done. And the possibilities for those Companies and Schools that have Interactive White Boards are limitless.