Screencast Tips
This week let's continue talking about screencasting or screen capturing. I originally introduced screencasting as a possible "help" for those of you doing remote or hybrid learning. Last week I shared some popular tools people use to screencast.
Let's talk about some of the reasons you might want to learn about screencasting. If you are like me, there have been plenty of times when I wished I had several duplicates of me. All of my library work was done in settings where I was the singleton or solo librarian. I never had a paraprofessional or aide assist me in the library.
Screencasting was a tool I used to "replicate" myself and save myself some time and headaches. There were a variety of different reasons I used screencasting. Maybe you can relate to one or more of them.
I quickly caught on that there were certain things I had to repeat over and over again like library orientation. It never failed that someone was absent on the day their class came to the library and I gave a live presentation of my library orientation for the year. And we all know how many times new students or even teachers would come to school and would need some kind of library orientation. So, I learned to record myself during one of my library orientations and place that on my website so people could use the video "on-demand". Tada! In a way I had just duplicated myself and made myself available to people anytime they needed a library orientation.
There were times I would give a professional development training at my faculty meeting. A day or so later, I would get an email asking me how I did xyz that day. I was thrilled someone actually paid attention and wanted to try out whatever I had shown them. And I wanted to pounce on this moment so I wouldn't lose a "customer". I wanted them to keep coming back to me with more questions. In these instances, I would quickly turn on Screencast-o-matic and make a personalized screencast just for them! I would even start with a screen of my face saying a personal comment like, "Hi, Cathy, thanks for reaching out to me. I think I know which part you're stuck on. Let me show you real quick." And then I would proceed with sharing my screen, instead of my face, and give them a quick overview of whatever I had shared at the faculty meeting. I kept these videos hidden from the public. They were just for the person I was helping.
When grade levels began conducting research, I found it easy to set up some mini-lessons with screencasting. I could show them during my library time and talk the students through the work they were going to be doing. Then the mini-lessons were there for the students and teachers to refer back to as they progressed further along through the research process
These are just a few ideas that might get you thinking about more reasons you might use screencasting. Screencasting is something I used pre-COVID 19 and during COVID 19. Screencasting is an essential tool in my toolbox.
There's lot of little tricks I've learned over the years of screencasting. If you're interested, I am hosting a free webinar on screencasting on October 4, 2020 at 4 PM. You can register here and I will send you a calendar invitation with a Zoom link.
Thanks,
Dr. Laura
Did you meet Kayla McNaighton this week? Check out her interview soon!
***Join our library squad! Scroll to the bottom of the page and subscribe to our mailing list. Stay up to date on latest blog posts, podcast interviews, and other related topics.***