Screencasting II, Classroom Casting

Classroom Casting

When I was reading Will Richardson’s book and research conducted by Ray Archee, I started to brainstorm different ways that my students and I can use screencasting. In this next section, I will explain how we continue to use screencasting and how screencasting has helped students and teachers further their knowledge. Archee’s research “Beyond E-Learning Management Systems: screen casting for presentation and practice” was very interesting to me as it discussed many of the issues that I had already encountered when I was faced with the dilemma of using Jing or Screencast-O-Matic. Archee explains how web based tools can have a positive impact on student learning and how screencasts can help aid those students who might require repeated explanations. While Archee’s research was conducted with university students many of his results were observed in my grade five classroom. My students were more relaxed knowing that if they missing something in a lesson they will be able to see it again on the video. If a student missed class they did not fall behind and if parents wanted to know what was going on in class they were able to access the files.

At first I was creating these screen cast for my students and posting them on our classroom site; however, this quickly changed. I started to think, “Why am I doing the videos? Why can’t my students create them?” I took on eight volunteers (two for math, two for language arts, two for science and two for social) and gave them permissions to post videos on our site. After only fifteen minutes in which I showed them how to use Screencast-O-Matic they were creating their own video tutorials. The work they produced was astounding. I was so surprised at the caliber of their work that I took the time to call home to praise their work. It is important to note that the original eight students who created these video are now teaching other students how to create their own videos. It is my dream that we create a library to tutorials on a variety of topics so that the Alberta Initiative for Anywhere, Anytime Learning can take place. Students have become more flexible when it comes to taking charge over their own learning, they are taking better notes because they can see a lesson more than once and as a result their achievement levels have also increased based on my observations.

Using screencasting in the classroom quickly evolved beyond making tutorials and lessons. We stated to screencast our digital stories and I even assessed student work using screencasting (Gormely). Using the Smart Notebook software, students placed images and text on different slides and narrated their stories. Using screencasting my students then posted their videos on a share drive where we took the time to watch each other’s personal narratives. This was a great experience! I also used screencasting to provide feedback to my students. I captured myself watching each of their videos, adding both audio and text comments and suggestions. I loved using this tool and will continue to use it in the future.

 References

Archee, R. (2008). Beyond E-Learning Management Systems: screen casting for presentation and practice. University of western Sydney, School of communication Arts. 2008 

Gormely, K. (2011) Do you Jing? How Screen casting can enrich classroom teaching and learning. The Sage College, Troy, New York. The Language and Literacy Spectrum Vol. 21, 2011.