I’m on YouTube!

This was a challenging assignment. This week, we were asked to put together a short screencast video to share a handy tip. Phew… I can’t believe how long it took me to make a short 5 minute video. What you see here is something like my fifth or sixth take. I kept getting to the end and then would flub my lines. I don’t see a voice-over career in my future. 🙂

The topic I picked, how to search for images online according to their digital use licenses, isn’t very sexy. However, if I’m going to expect my students to work under an honor code, I must model that same behavior. So, figuring out what’s free to use is helpful even if it’s dryer than dust. Any suggestions y’all might have on how to make it a more interesting tutorial, please feel free to share.

So one way screencasting can be used in education is to demonstrate how to do something online or on the computer (except how to screencast apparently). In this case, it provides a platform to give detailed instructions while showing your audience how something is done. Teachers can also use this tool to record project or assignment directions so that student can refer to them as needed. Here is an example of this use.

What are some other ways to use this tool? 

One option would be to do a “live” screencast where  you record the lesson as you deliver it. I can see how this would be a useful tool for reteaching and providing students with the opportunity to review the lesson at their own pace. Techsmith refines further on this benefit by pointing out that live screencasting your lessons will quickly allow you to develop a catalog of lesson videos that can be later used to create a flipped classroom.

Students can also become screencasters. Using this technology will allow them to add their own commentary to presentations or other projects. This tool can help students develop their skills as public speakers in a venue where the audience isn’t readily visible, which might be a way around their anxiety about speaking in public.

One option that occurred to me is using screencasting as a scaffold for ELL  or special needs students. This tool will allow me to read the text on the screen at a slow pace so that students can follow both text and speech. Of course, the text would have to be available digitally.

Finally, I could use screencasting to give feedback to students on their work. So instead of handing back an annotated essay, I could provide not only written commentary  but audio to reinforce the lesson. What written comments lack is the context tone provides, so an observation that might read as critical might be heard as constructive. I find this idea extremely intriguing.