Screencasting

Screencasting! Clone yourself!

How on earth are you suppose to meet everyone's needs all day, everyday? Teaching is a hard task but screencasting can make the job a little easier. When needed, you can create videos for students to watch when they are ready. It's just in time learning and it frees you up to confer and problem solve with students that need your help.

There are SO many screencasting tools out there to use. We suggest you try a few and find one you feel that fits your needs. Our two favorites are Quicktime Player (the program is free our own macbook pro laptops) and Screencastify (which is a free app in the crome web store). Check out the ideas below on how to use screencasts on a website, how to make screen casts using Quicktime Player or Screencastify and also how to get started with some "do's and dont's" when creating screencasts.

QuickTime Player

Screencastify

Screencasting Do's and Dont's

Make the videos short and sweet. I know, I know. We are all very entertaining teachers but no one wants to hear us go on and on. Less is usually more in this case. No one wants to watch a video longer than 5 minutes.
Clean off your desktop. It just looks nicer and you know you have kids that are easily distracted and look the junk on your desktop instead of the content you want them to be focusing on.
Make sure that the audio in your screencast is audible. Often times the built in microphone will do the trick but if you need a better sound, ask around for a microphone to attach to the computer. Also, try recording with headphones and see if you get a better sound.
Find a quiet place to record. It's just easier. It never fails that once you hit record a child or dog wants something from you or the phone rings.
Turn off notifications on your laptop so you don't get interrupted while creating a screencast.
If you are showing multiple steps in a screencast, consider making a short series of videos so your audience doesn't have to watch one long video.
If you have time, take a few minutes to edit your screencast. Trim the video when the tech was taking too long to load or when you started to ramble on at the end of the video. If this a screencast that you can use for the following year, maybe it's worth putting in a little extra time.
Throw your trimmed/edited quicktime video into iMovie and add a little introduction and ending to you movie. It's amazing how a little introduction and transition will turn your homemade video into a professional tutorial. Again, if this project is something that you plan to use in the future, then the extra time you put into the screencast will be worth your time and effort.