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Classroom Benefits to Screencasting

Screencasting is the effort of recording your device's screen while narrating the actions taking place on the screen, similar to a think aloud while reading a book. Screencasting is a great way for you to transform your learning environment regardless of subject!

Benefits of Screencast: 

  1. Frees you as the facilitator to guide learners that may need additional support or enhance content for those that need pushed!
  2. Could be used to flip the learning environment. Screencast the lesson ahead of time, post the video to the LMS, and have learners watch it the night before to come to class prepared for a project or class discussion. 
  3. It can be used as a formative/summative assessment tool!
  4. It supports to the Rotational Model, mentioned in this post, as a portion of the Independent stations. 
  5. You could have your learners create screencasts demonstrating their learning of a process, making their learning visible to you and the other learners within the class!
  6. We can also reach that Redefinition level of SAMR by having the kids create screencasts that flip the learning environment, turning them in to the facilitators of a particular portion of the content to be learned. The follow up step to this process is having the other learners watch the screencasts, hold an online discussion about the content from the video, demonstrating their new learning from the screencasts!

Tools for Screencasting: 

There are tons of tools available for screencasting on different devices. In a see of options, there will certainly be no "right" answer, but one that fits you and your style best. I'm a huge proponent of the one take style, so when I list my preferences below, that's the frame that I am coming with, i.e. editting capabilities within the software are not a priority for me!

For Mac: I like both Screencast-o-Matic.com and Quicktime

  • Screencast-o-Matic: This one can be downloaded or used right from the web. It allows screencasts up to 15 minutes long for free, which is far more length than you really need for most videos/attention spans! It can save the screencast to your machine or directly upload to Youtube which is a feature that I love! Lastly, it has a great feature which highlights your cursor as your click on spaces of your screen, drawing the viewer's attention in. 
  • Quicktime: This is a built in piece of software that comes with each Mac, so why not take advantage of it! You can do a screen record for unlimited time restriction, although I wouldn't recommend it for attention reasons, but length is determined by your hard drive size. Once you are finished with the recording you can save it locally, then do what you like with it, such as put it on your LMS or Youtube! 

For iPad: I like ShowMe and EduCreations

  • ShowMe: ShowMe is great because it has a really simple interface, which mean low learning curve; hugely important in the every minute counts environments we all work in! You can create class groups on ShowMe which allow you to capture screencasts directly in the group, automatically sharing your work with others! Boom! There is also the ShowMe community of screencasts and resources which you can take advantage of. All that, there's no reason not to use it!
  • EduCreations: EduCreations is a beautiful also simple interface that has a low learning curve to it. EduCreations has many of the same features listed above as ShowMe with exception of the Groups/Classes feature, however where it makes up for that is the ability to save your screencasts to the camera roll! This allows you to share your screencast where you want it, such as Drive, Youtube, or your class LMS. I like choice of destination very much, however not as automatic as ShowMe's groups. 

For Chrome I like Screencastify

  • This is an extension for Chrome that will allow you to do a screencast then save the screencast to your Drive. This is a nice way to automate the process of getting the file to a place that is shareable easily! With the free version you still get plenty of time for creating a video, 10 minutes, again great time limitation for attention spans! If you are a Chrome users this is a must have extension!
As you can see there are tons of benefits and possibilities to screencasting that will transform your learning environment and make the learning more personalized and can help with classroom management, engagement, and ownership of the learning!

As always, I hope you found this information helpful! Feel free to follow up in the comments below!

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