Transcript of screencast

The iNACOL standard for Quality Online Teaching which applies to my work this week is

1. Use a learning management system and/or other online collaborative tools to organize and manage the blended learning environment.
2. Demonstrate skill in the evaluation, selection, and use of effective instructional materials, tools, strategies, and resources for students, and engage students in this process to help their achievement and development of academic skills.
3. Provide assistive technologies to facilitate learning.

I created two screencasts to help my fellow classmates because it seemed to me that when I read their posts they were unsure of how to use the tools available within PowerSchool. I have created screencasts before, in fact, I am using a game based Hyperdoc in my 4th-grade classroom right now that allows my students to watch tutorials to learn skills in Google docs and there are at least 20 screencasts in this one assignment. What I had to practice doing was adding the closed captioning to my videos. This was not hard, though it was frustrating. It seems that every time I use YouTube it has had an update and I spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to do something again. I think the captions are important and I will be more considerate about using them in the future. I know I often watch TV with them on, so I see their benefit on a personal level. It is important to edit them however, as they often make errors in word use and/or the sentences seem to run on. After editing the captions I am more aware of how I could be better at creating the screencasts and I could make my descriptions better. I need to slow down and take my time and chose my words carefully. I am sure that with more practice, I will be better at creating the screencasts and editing the captions. It is a shame that the Screencast-o-matic videos didn't hold onto the captions when the video is posted to YouTube as I created the screencasts with captions within this tool. I feel I will strengthen my skills as move forward and it was helpful being a student and seeing how my peers were using or not using the PowerSchool program. I enjoyed having a chance to help them and hope that this is exactly the type of screencast I might make if were I teaching a class using PowerSchool. My school was using PowerSchool two years ago and I created several screencasts for it then; of course, it is updated so the screencasts are out of date.

Final reflections

As my next reflection will show, I missed an entire part of this module's assignment when it came to creating a transcript.This was a powerful lesson for me as a learner. I believe that showing someone how to do something (face-to-face or via video) is a powerful way to teach and to learn. The benefit of a video is it is not limited to time and place. As a teacher of elementary age children I need to teach them how to use video (I teach rewinding and forwarding) and to remind them they can go back and watch it again, freeze the video and toggle between screens or use the Scissors/Glue tab extensions to make side-by-side windows. As adults this seems obvious, helping children take charge of their learning with pace and place is powerful. I have enjoyed seeing my third graders embrace just such a lesson and I am excited to see how their skills have developed with our most recent blended assignment of creating a 'book' using Google Slides. I realize I need to double check if I turned on the closed captioning for the videos in this lesson. I am not sure this is second nature yet, but I will go back and adjust.