We know people learn in a variety of ways. Often our students enjoy listening, viewing, moving, to learn certain skills. Sometimes, a quick tutorial like a video could help students learn. Screencasts can be used to help you create powerful tutorials for your students.
A screencast to to take a video or picture from your desktop. When you add audio to it, you can create computer tutorials.
- Aviscreen (video only, Windows only, free)
- Camstudio (video & audio, Windows only, free)
- Copernicus (video, MAC only, free)
- Jingproject (video, picture from desktop portion, draw on it, add messages and upload it, free, windows and MAC, pro $15 per year)
- Screencast-O-Matic (Windows and MAC, no downloads needed, free)
- Wink (audio & text tutorial, free)
- Adobe Captivate (expensive but versatile)
- AllCapture (free trial, real time capture with audio)
- Camtasia ($299 for the Windows version. $99 for the Mac version)
- Educreations free interactive whiteboard app
- Explain everything ($2.99): looks like the most versatile app for screencasting using ipads. You can import files, record, write, share.
- Show me - interactive whiteboard, record, explain, share.
- bContext - interactive whiteboard
1. Why create a tutorial?
- Students learn at different rates and everyone has different experiences. Some students may already know ho to use certain web tools while other students have difficulty with it.
- In order to help everyone learn and allow everyone to be challenged, we create tutorials, step-by-step visual guides to allow students to learn at their own pace.
- Tutorials can be very helpful when students were absent and they can do the task on their own at home by watching a tutorial.
- Or even when you explain something in class, at times teachers go too quick and students may need to review a tutorial before they can begin a project.
- Currently, teachers in PE are exploring flipping the classroom. This means that teachers will record a powerpoint for example and teach a concept that students will review at home and when they return to the classroom they will apply what they learned at home. This is called flipping the classroom (as in theory learning and home, application and practice in class)
2. How to begin
- You will choose a piece of web technology you know about and you wish to share with others how to use this piece of technology.
- In the Leight book in the beginning there is a list of topics you could choose from if you want some ideas.
- You will create a short web tutorial using your computer
- Examples of short tutorials:
- How to set up a google account
- How to create an eportfolio as a Cortland student
- How to use doodle for easy scheduling
- How to use a certain app (if you do this using an ipad you may wish to explore the ipad options to create a screencast from your ipad (see above)
- How to use socrative to create interactive assessments
- How to create a picture banner for your portfolio using picasa
- and many more... Note: pick one skill only, not how to create a whole google site but how to sign up and use a template for example.
3. Choosing a screencast tool
- You can use any type of screencasting tool but Jing, snagit or camtasia is probably the easiest screencast tools there are. Explore both to see which one you like.
- Jing is completely free and easy to use if you are only doing a screencast from your computer screen. You simply capture what you see and record what you do, step by step.
- Snagit is a level up from Jing and allows different images to be imported. It has a one-moth free trial you can use.
- Camtasia has a one-month free download and is another step up. With this tool you can add more effects and look like a pro!
- Before you start, you should check out the tutorials of the screencast tool how to create one - in the mean while these tutorials are good examples of how your tutorial should look and sound like.
- The video below will show you an example of the project you will need to create using the JING screencast tool.
JING example tutorial project