What are the screencasts?
A screencast is a narrated video recording of your computer screen. (Screencasts. Centre for Teaching Excellence, University of Waterloo.)
Screencast is not a new idea — it has long been used in the software market to train people to use these products. In education, a teacher can use screencast to teach learners to use both a variety of professional applications and successfully complete routine tasks in general-purpose programs.
The specific term ‘screencasting’ was coined by Jon Udell, freelance media journalist, in 2005, who defines: "A screencast is a digital movie in which the setting is partly or wholly a computer screen, and in which audio narration describes the on-screen action".
Screencasts offer teachers to create a digital recording of any instructional activity performed on a computer screen. The benefit of a screencast is an effective way of describing any process step-by-step, explaining a particular concept.
What is the main difference between a screencast and a narrated presentation?There are many things common to both tools, but the main difference between the two is that with the screencast, there is the possibility to show, step-by-step, the processes in any application available on the computer.
But it all goes back to the same basic idea of education—direct instruction/lecture becomes homework, while independent practice happens in the class