Database Tutorial Reflection

Before starting this assignment, I was not looking forward to screencasting and recording because, like most human people, I do not like hearing my own voice played back at me. Having to use voice overs in our Digital Storytelling assignment helped get me more comfortable with it, and once I had a basic script and went through my database routine a few times, I was ready to try it out.

I used Screencastify because it has such an easy interface for my Chromebook, and videos are saved automatically to my Google Drive. I found the process super quick and easy, and did a practice run of my tutorial. Take 1 helped me decide what was useful and better ways to click through the pages and options of my chosen database (JSTOR), and with a few notes to myself about enunciation, I was ready for Take 2. An almost immediate word flub sent me to Take 3, which gave me a pretty solid final product.

So solid, in fact, that I thought to myself, "I bet I could improve a few more things and streamline the process." BIG MISTAKE. The number one thing I have (re)learned with this assignment: a good and done job is better than great or perfect and not done. I should have been happy with Take 3 and its minor word stumble because Takes 4-7 all had technical difficulties (my laptop took extra time loading pages, the sound cut out at one point, and I could not get the Screencastify extension to stop recording, leading to 30 extra seconds of silence at the end of one video).

After a short break and a few deep breaths, I was ready to try again and take whatever okay product I could get. Luckily, Take 8 was the charm and here I have a Final Product.



From now on, I'll be extra forgiving of online tutorials with minor mistakes or flubs (including my own) - probably the creator of those just wants the product done and out there to help others, and has gone through multiple takes of even worse videos or just okay videos that they wanted to improve. As a lapsed perfectionist, I understand that done is better than perfect, but it's always a good to be reminded of that in practice!