Screencasts

Screencasts! What once started out as a fear of hearing my voice and seeing myself on video has turned into a love of the digital educational platform screencasts! I initially had to start, restart and redo but after practicing with it enough times, I have become much more comfortable creating screencasts and editing the videos.

Reasons to Use Screencasts

There are a number of reasons that screencasts are ideal for use in digital education and should be used within the school library.
Professional Development: creating tutorials for teachers allows them to work at their own pace or attend the "class" when it is most convenient. Uploading these screencasts to a YouTube channel or Google Drive for access at anytime is definitely helpful when new teachers are looking for answers or when a user forgets how to complete a task. 
Student lessons: tutorials for searching the OPAC, accessing the online databases, and searching the available online resources.
Blended learning: allowing students to see and hear book trailers of new books that have just arrived to campus and then letting students create their own videos to share with the campus.
Parent communication: sending out videos to parents or posting them in a newsletter would allow them to see what is happening in the library and give them ways to help their child at home when accessing resources. 

Screencast Options

I have tried a few different programs to create screencasts but I have settled on a subscription to Screencastify. I don't know that is my FAVORITE but I do like that it is an easy program to navigate and the extension added to the toolbar allows for a quick video. My current account with Screencastify is with their $24 yearly subscription. Features included with this account are full-screen or just a single window recording, embedding the webcam anywhere in the screen, narrating with the microphone, and recording even without internet connection. There are annotation tools and variety of ways to save the recording. It can be uploaded to YouTube, Google Drive or downloaded for a shareable link.

Screencast-o-matic is another great program with exceptional features. This program integrates with other educational platforms that schools are already using, such as Google Classroom, Canvas, Schoology, and Microsoft Teams. They offer a free version along with the Deluxe account that is less than $20/year and the Premier account is $48/year. Tons of features including a music library, video editing, and collaboration tools are all available depending on the account. I will definitely consider moving to a Screencast-o-matic account because of the additional features.