Screencasting in Education

Screencasts are a great substitute teacher for short tasks that can be explained in a couple of minutes. And not just for students, but for co-teachers as well.

In a class that Jono Steenwijk and I co-teach, we had divided up some tasks during co-planning that consisted of my preparing screencasts for the technology nuts-and-bolts of our project. We used SMART Recorder from the Notebook Software for SMART Board.

Jono and I quickly discovered some benefits of screencasts.

1. Screencasts teach teachers too. A co-teacher can learn from the screencasts if he hasn't yet explored the technology.
2. Screencasts are transferable. A co-teacher can use another teacher's screencast.
3. Screencasts differentiate. Students can watch the screencast once or multiple times.
4. Screencasts free up teacher time. While students are (re-)watching screencasts, teachers can help students in other ways that aren't as "mundane" as click here, now click here, and finally click here.

A minor word of caution: It might take a couple of "drafts" to make a screencast, but that depends on how well you narrate and perform on the spot. The investment of time on the teacher's part would be made up for if students are using and learning from screencasts outside the classroom.

Here are the screencasts we used for some PowerPoint and Photo Story 3 tasks.