ShareX

Screen recording with ShareX

Free Screen Recorder

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Advantages of ShareX

The page of this site    https://sergeykhrushchev.com/exams  contains information on exams organization in Microsoft 365 Education A3. The important part of this program is the screen recording on students' computers during the exam which very often lasts two hours. Two hours of recording in PowerPoint result in huge video files. As a result, it is difficult to organize them into a simple list. ShareX is free from additional functions presenting in SharePoint. Two hours of recording in default settings usually produce an mp4 file smaller than 800 Mb in size. Therefore, the final file can be uploaded to the Microsoft Form, which can deliver all files into one place in the SharePoint of the given team.

                                             ShareX Installation
The program ShareX is available in Microsoft Store. Do not try to record the screen until you config ShareX. When you start it, you will see the following window (Pic. 1). Press "Problems after capture" and you obtain the window shown on Pic. 2. When you press on the text line it is highlighted/returned back. I recommend to remove the default highlighted text "Upload images to a server". Then press "Settings of applications" followed by the path (Pic. 3). This determines the folder for screen shots and video screen recordings. By default if is C:\Users\User_Name\Documents\ShareX. Images and videos are recorded to subfolders of C:\Users\User_Name\Documents\ShareX\Screenshotes named by the date stamps, such as 2021-03. Those who use Microsoft 365 have OneDrive. Therefore default hotkeys in ShareX to capture the screen are in a conflict with OneDrive, You can change them as shown in Pic. 5. To start recording (see Pic. 6) you can either press "Operations" followed by "Begin/Stop recording , or just press "Shift + Print Screen". To step press either of them again. When you press them the cursor changes its form and the recording begins as soon as you select some rectangular area. In our case it is the full screen.

Pic. 1  

Configuration of ShareX video recording

I open the menu.

Pic. 2

Configuration of ShareX video recording

By default, ShareX tries to reach one of the clouds. Since it is important to record the screen to the local PC during the exams, everybody must turn this feature off. To do this, I press "Tasks after capture" (see 1). The lines 2-5 must be bold, whereas line 6 is not. Click on it to return the text to the normal fonts.

Pic. 3

Configuration of ShareX video recording

To find the location of the recording I press "Settings of the applications" and then "Catalogues."

Pic.4

Configuration of ShareX video recording

To see the parameters of video recordings, I press line "Tasks settings," and then "Screen recording." In fact, these parameters should be left as indicated.

Pic.5

Configuration of ShareX video recording

To simplify the start/end of recordings, one can define hot keys. I press "Hot keys" and get the list of five actions, which can be initiated by hot keys. If the key combination is not in conflict with other hot keys in the PC, then the square to the right is green. Otherwise, it is red. To make it green just put the cursor to the box with the hot key combination and press a new combination until the square becomes green.

Pic.6

Configuration of ShareX video recording

By pressing onto "Operations," one can start/stop the recording without hot keys.

The Microsoft Form for video collection

Now, I create the Form to collect students' videos.

I open Forms from the Business version of Microsoft Office and press the check mark to the right of "+New Quiz".

Then I press onto "New Form".

I give the title to this Form.

I create the text field for the First Name

I turn on the "Required" switch. It will remain turned on for other fields automatically.

I press this button to create the text field for the Last Name.

I press "+Add new" button to create the field for file uploading.

I open a new menu by pressing the check mark to the right of the ribbon and after that press the "File upload" button.

I confirm my choice of the operation by pressing on "Ok, continue."

I chose the maximal size of the file for uploading. It should be 1 Gb.

I fill in the name of the third field. Change the file number limit to ten. This is because students make mistakes.

The form is ready.

By pressing "+" on the right panel we can change the background with our own picture or with pictures from the Internet. We can also use the templates.

My Form got a new background. I press ellipsis and then "Settings".

It is important to unmark field "One respond per person". There is a chance that somebody will make a mistake.  The check mark in front of line "Record name" must be present. In this case the system identify the form with the user who submitted it. I recommend to leave blank the square in front of "One response per person."

I press "Copy" to get the reference to this Form, and  then publish it in the main tab "Publications" of the Team.

I publish the reference in the Team.

This shows how the form looks like after uploading videos.

We press "Responses" to open this tab. If we press "Open in Excel" here, then we get the list of students and in the third column the URLs of recorded videos. This Excel file can be sent to a Department folder.

If I press "More details" under the third field, then I obtain the following picture.

I can press on any video in the list to start watching. I can also press "View in folder".

I get the list of all uploaded files. It is easy to remove them all when the examination grades are approved.