Week 3 - Screencasts

Assignment Title: Screencast

Uses in the Classroom
Screencasts are at the center of my life…sadly. As an instructional technologist for a large university, I cannot possibly reach every faculty member and show them how to do things. There are simply not enough hours in the day. Therefore, I’m faced with two options: first, to live in meetings and have the faculty show up on my front lawn after hours, or secondly:  to use screen casting to show users how to accomplish things step by step.

For a classroom that’s attempting to do any kind of computer related project this is a must. With screen casting we have a really great ability to show the students exactly what they should be clicking on and the process for completing their tasks. Also, especially with students that have trouble with technology they may need to be told things two and three times. This can make for a really long lesson for the teacher and take time away from students who might just need a quick fix. With screen casting videos the students in need of assistance can watch the video as many times as they like as well as rewind, fast forward or even pause to take notes.

Finally, a real benefit for my teaching in computers is the number of screencasts that are available on YouTube for anyone to watch. There are processes as complicated as “Installing Microsoft Exchange Server” or as simple as “Creating documents with Microsoft Word” all free and community driven, some are better than others but that’s an aspect of any community driven project. Users can just type virtually any computer related task into YouTube and find quick and detailed answers easily. Therefore, staff may not have to spend the time making their own videos, but simply link to ones already created.

Issues to Consider
With any computer based project or any lesson where the instruction of how to do things with a computer is critical, one of the most important aspects is consistency. It does you absolutely no good to show a user how to accomplish a computer based task on your computer, and then expect them to be able to do the same thing on a computer at school with possibly a different version or operating system. To be successful as a good teaching tool, screencasts have to be relevant and consistent with the look and feel the students will see when they login. For that reason, I always try and push for a separate machine that acts exactly like the ones in the lab or try and record my screen casts in the computer lab itself. This way I can be sure my screens will look exactly like the students.

Another issue to consider is the issue of accessibility when dealing with screen casting. Videos with narration are great for the vast majority of students, however when dealing with students that have hearing or visual disabilities the process can seem useless. Transcription of your videos with text can assist, but that can only go so far. Thought must be given to accommodation and audience before the video is published.

Copyright: TrueCrypt is a free and open source GNU project with provisions in the license to allow for graphical representation of the software screens and windows.