Learn at your own pace
Screencasting is an effective way to shift the focus on a whole class of students to the individual behind the desk. Or the screen, in our case.Addressing visual and aural learning needs, as well as providing for one-on-one instructional time with students, has never been so easy. Screencasts have proven an efficient way to reach each learner individually and at their own pace.
Although the finished product does not provide opportunities for immediate interaction, it can be a great resource for after school hours, to present or reinforce a new concept, to model for technology use or to simply foment a classroom discussion the next day. Since this strategy has become a common practice in the academic world at large, our team has taken on the challenge of synthesizing the experience for teachers who have not yet taken advantage of it and would like to do so. Our focus is not only on the ways teachers themselves can use screencasts to promote learning, but also on effective classroom incorporation of student creation. Concerning the role screencasting plays in regards to the teacher, there are two main areas of emphasis. The first area is for basic instructions for a variety of purposes. For instance, if you were going to be using a new tool for a project, it is particularly useful to screencast your instructions so that students can revisit them time and again as they work through the project. While screencasting instructions is fairly surface level use, the second area of emphasis is more transformative. By recording your actual instruction of lessons and presenting those to your students, you open a whole host of possibilities. |
Screencasting has an impact on student learning in a variety of ways. As mentioned above, the ability to review content over and over again allows for the student to learn at their own pace. However, screencasting can play a much larger role in student learning than simple consumption on information. Students can also be pushed into higher levels of creative and critical thinking by producing screencasts themselves. The planning and preparation that go into such a presentation, along with the actual production of the screencast have numerous effects on student learning; deep understanding is necessary in order to explain, metacognition is promoted, and the students, in many cases, are creating a valuable tool for an authentic audience.
Subject matter and screencasting go hand-in-hand. Screencasting is essentially creating your own tailor-made subject specific content. In terms of the curriculum, as we read through a number of sources to start outlining this project, we realized that there has been a strong focus on the benefits of screencasting in Science and Mathematics classes, but it is clear to us that the strategy can be used with each and every subject area. For Arts, it can be used to demonstrate graphic design tools; for Music, it could showcase a sampling session on Garage Band or any number of audio recording tools for the more specific setting of school; for Language Arts, a teacher could assess students’ presentation and synthesis skills, organization, understanding and use of a particular standard, etc. The possibilities are endless, as it has been previously mentioned. In terms of the context of instruction and learning, this area of education refers to the importance of making technology fit in the world around us. If that is the case, than screencasts are a very powerful tool. We see a shift in education from students being receivers of knowledge to being creators of knowledge. Screencasting not only provides a means to create knowledge, but also seamlessly fits into tools to publish that knowledge to the world around us. Students can now become teachers of others in their area of expertise. |