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ScreenFlow and Camtasia For Teaching with Accordance


Dr. Nathan Parker

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When I was over on Windows and I prepared biblical teaching videos with Accordance, I used Camtasia as my screen recorder of choice.

 

Now that I've moved back to a Mac, I definitely want to go more powerful than QuickTime's screen recorder. 

 

I have a license to both ScreenFlow 6 and Camtasia 3 for Mac.

 

Currently, I've installed ScreenFlow 6 on my Mac. Back when I was last on a Mac, I absolutely loved ScreenFlow and used it heavily. It made screencasting and teaching with Accordance a joy and breeze.

 

Since I also have a license for Camtasia 3 for Mac, would there be any benefit for me to install Camtasia 3 for Mac as well? Is there anything Camtasia 3 for Mac does that ScreenFlow doesn't do that would warrant me bouncing between ScreenFlow and Camtasia when screencasting and teaching with Accordance on my Mac, or should I simply stick with ScreenFlow all the way? Should I even install it as a "backup" in the event ScreenFlow would ever be difficult and I needed a "backup"?

 

I also have Snagit installed as my screen capture tool as I do use Snagit daily. Used it on the Mac before I went with Windows, used it with Windows, and I'm back using it on a Mac. Snagit it way more powerful than Grab and a tool I can't live without.

 

Thanks!

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Totally agree about snagit. Brilliant tool. We use it for all our validation testing and i used it for all our requirements, training manuals and sharepoint standards.

 

(though for a quick screen shot in when producing documents in word and i found i had forgotten one, i actually used word's tool, though that was at work using windows).

 

Our technical authors who i worked with a lot swore by camtasia on their macs.

Edited by ukfraser
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  • 1 month later...

Sorry it's taken me so long to respond to this. 

 

I ended up installing Camtasia 3 for Mac and Mellel 4 on my Mac in addition to ScreenFlow 7 and Nota Bene, Pages, and Nisus Writer Pro. Here's why...

 

In terms of screen capture, the majority of the time I'll be going to ScreenFlow. It's the highest quality app of them all, plus it's the easiest to use. I can whip up screencasts easily in ScreenFlow. 

 

However, Camtasia excels at a handful of areas: 1. When I need still high quality but a smaller file size. ScreenFlow does a wonderful job at quality, but file sizes can be large. When quality matters and I have plenty of space, ScreenFlow is it. When space is a concern and I need to offer high enough quality but a much smaller file size, I'll use Camtasia. 2. At times I may need to create video quizzes to upload to a LMS as a SCORM package. For these, I'll need Camtasia (ScreenFlow doeesn't offer it). 3. If I know I need to share my projects with someone else with a PC, I'll likely create the project in Camtasia since it can export to Windows. If I'm sharing projects with Mac only users or creating projects only for myself (one school I'll be working for uses Macs for their entire faculty), then I'll use ScreenFlow. 4. At times if I use any of Techsmith's mobile apps, I'd either import the content into Camtasia, or if I want to use ScreenFlow, import into Snagit then into ScreenFlow, so that one can go either way.

 

In terms of word processors, Nota Bene is still going to be my go-to word processor for academic research and writing (I love the integrated workflow). Pages has been great for when I need to create print-worthy documents or do high collaboration with my iPad since it all syncs with iCloud. Nisus Writer Pro has been great for every day word processing, and I see no reason to mess with Word when I work with Nisus Writer Pro. I still installed Mellel on my Mac and iPad for the occasional times when I need to do a little more intense writing on my iPad Pro. I can take my iPad Pro with me and start research and writing on the iPad Pro using Mellel since it's more powerful than Pages, then have it sync the documents with Mellel back on my Mac, then when I get back to my Mac, I'd likely export the documents into Nota Bene and fold everything into Nota Bene. 

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