Many educators are plunging into creating digital resources as part of their districts plan to continue instruction while school facilities are closed for the remainder of the school year. If you have not explored this before now, there are several options available to you in a variety of prices and skillset.
The tools we suggest will be free or inexpensive and only focus on creating videos that you can share with students later. There are options for live video conferencing and some of these tools are designed for that, but we are only focusing on video recording. This type of learning model would best be classified as asynchronous because you are allowing students to work at different times. This may be the best option since some of your students may have siblings and limited use of technology at their house.
Before we get started, please check with your district to see if there are any restrictions on which tools you may use. There is a possibility that some of these tools are not available in your district or your district may have a specific tool that they want you to use. Please abide by the policies established by your district and if you prefer one of the options I share with you, go through the proper channels to have it added to the approved list for your district.
Screencastify is one of the tools I use to record tutorials and instructional videos. It allows you the option to record the tab you are in, the entire window, your webcam or a combination of the webcam and the window or tab. It also lets your record audio. You are limited to five (5) minutes per video in the free version. If you want to record longer videos, you can either record each segment as separate videos or upgrade to the paid version (which for an individual educator is $29 per year). There are also options for school purchasing, but the cost will depend on the number of people making videos. One good reason to use this tool is the direct integration with G-Suite for Education. It will save the video to your Drive, allow you to upload straight to Youtube, share to Classroom or generate embed code. You can also download the video in several formats for posting & sharing.
Zoom is traditionally considered a video conferencing tool. You can actually create/host a meeting utilizing all the various sharing options (screen, iPad/iPhone, webcam and whiteboard) and record the meeting without inviting anyone else to the meeting. Once you finish the meeting, save the recording of the meeting and upload it to your content management system or whatever sharing platform you are using for instruction.
Loom is another screen recording option, much like Screencastify. It does have a Pro version that is free for educators and students. It might be worth checking into this one because of the free option for educators. I have not explored this one much because I use the previous two options.
Screencast-O-Matic is another screen capture tool. It offers free and paid versions. The free version limits the time and the number of choices for background music (yes it offers background music). What are the advantages of the background music option? When recording videos there are many sounds that might come across like the fans on your computer, typing noises, chair creeks, dogs barking outside, etc. If you add background music to your video some of those distractions are diminished. Just make sure the music you add doesn't become a distraction. I mentioned this one has a paid version like several of the others. For educators, the paid plan starts at less than $2 a month. With the paid plan you get to record longer videos, auto caption your videos and edit your videos.
There are other options available and I am listing some of them here. The ones above are all tools I have personally used or other educators have used and recommended them to me. Here are some of the other options to explore:
I didn't go into detail on any of these but I just wanted to give you a quick overview to get you started.
Thank you for reading The Cluttered Desk. You can find me on Twitter @jasonbengs. Please feel free to comment on the post and share your ideas with me. You can also leave a response on The Cluttered Desk Flipgrid page if you would like to leave a comment on this or any other post or podcast episode by going to https://flipgrid.com/03fa4e01 If you found any value in this post, please share it with others.
The tools we suggest will be free or inexpensive and only focus on creating videos that you can share with students later. There are options for live video conferencing and some of these tools are designed for that, but we are only focusing on video recording. This type of learning model would best be classified as asynchronous because you are allowing students to work at different times. This may be the best option since some of your students may have siblings and limited use of technology at their house.
Before we get started, please check with your district to see if there are any restrictions on which tools you may use. There is a possibility that some of these tools are not available in your district or your district may have a specific tool that they want you to use. Please abide by the policies established by your district and if you prefer one of the options I share with you, go through the proper channels to have it added to the approved list for your district.
Screencastify is one of the tools I use to record tutorials and instructional videos. It allows you the option to record the tab you are in, the entire window, your webcam or a combination of the webcam and the window or tab. It also lets your record audio. You are limited to five (5) minutes per video in the free version. If you want to record longer videos, you can either record each segment as separate videos or upgrade to the paid version (which for an individual educator is $29 per year). There are also options for school purchasing, but the cost will depend on the number of people making videos. One good reason to use this tool is the direct integration with G-Suite for Education. It will save the video to your Drive, allow you to upload straight to Youtube, share to Classroom or generate embed code. You can also download the video in several formats for posting & sharing.
Zoom is traditionally considered a video conferencing tool. You can actually create/host a meeting utilizing all the various sharing options (screen, iPad/iPhone, webcam and whiteboard) and record the meeting without inviting anyone else to the meeting. Once you finish the meeting, save the recording of the meeting and upload it to your content management system or whatever sharing platform you are using for instruction.
Loom is another screen recording option, much like Screencastify. It does have a Pro version that is free for educators and students. It might be worth checking into this one because of the free option for educators. I have not explored this one much because I use the previous two options.
Screencast-O-Matic is another screen capture tool. It offers free and paid versions. The free version limits the time and the number of choices for background music (yes it offers background music). What are the advantages of the background music option? When recording videos there are many sounds that might come across like the fans on your computer, typing noises, chair creeks, dogs barking outside, etc. If you add background music to your video some of those distractions are diminished. Just make sure the music you add doesn't become a distraction. I mentioned this one has a paid version like several of the others. For educators, the paid plan starts at less than $2 a month. With the paid plan you get to record longer videos, auto caption your videos and edit your videos.
I didn't go into detail on any of these but I just wanted to give you a quick overview to get you started.
Thank you for reading The Cluttered Desk. You can find me on Twitter @jasonbengs. Please feel free to comment on the post and share your ideas with me. You can also leave a response on The Cluttered Desk Flipgrid page if you would like to leave a comment on this or any other post or podcast episode by going to https://flipgrid.com/03fa4e01 If you found any value in this post, please share it with others.
Comments
Post a Comment