Screencastomatic and screencasting

I've been having some trouble with Screencastomatic, the free, cloud-based screen-casting site.  The recurring issue is updating java (a repeating cycle of requests) and compatibility with java on a Mac.

In frustration I did a trial of Camtasia (not free). Camtasia worked fine, but was more complex than I need, and so promises a steeper learning curve/bigger time investment.

I also checked in faculty tech A/V media expert Ian Coronado at a faculty tech Tuesday brown bag in the ATC. Ian had a workaround and some thoughts about the future. The fix was to download a copy of Screencastomatic which I can use without access to the web, which may work in the short run without the same java problems (so far, so good).

The future question, though, is how long programs that rely on java will continue to work, since apparently java is no longer being supported (if I have this wrong, my apologies, this is my layman's paraphrase).

Ian suggested checking out ink2go as a cheap alternative ($19.99). (Note that this is not software our college provides, so I'm considering whether to buy it myself.) Some benefits:

• you can screencast what's on your computer 
• your cast is an .mov file
• you can annotate/mark up what is showing on your screen

Ian will be offering a faculty tech session on ink2go for interested folks on Tuesday, June 4 from 4 to 5 p.m. (I believe that will be in the ATC classroom.)  The more the merrier!