Category: EdTech

April 2016

Have you ever been in this scenario: You are about to show your class that clip from youtube that perfectly describes the concept that you are covering, you click the link and….you are informed that the video is no longer available. OK so obviously you should have checked whilst planning your lesson that all your resources were still available. Sometimes you may wish that you still had access to the clip as nothing else seems to come close to the explanation.

A simple solution I have found is to use a piece of software called Clipgrab to download clips that I have found particularly useful for a particular subject to make sure that I have access to them when the links no longer work. Make sure you check the copyright permissions however before you do. This video will show you how to do it.

April 2016

If you are a Mac user there is a very handy way to trim films, documentaries and other similar media using Quicktime. Once the video is trimmed it can easily be inserted into relevant presentations. The video below will show you how to do it:

April 2016

Sketchpad 3.7 is a web based drawing platform that is completely free. Combined with an ability to screencast, this software can be used by students to make their thinking visible and audible. Teachers can also use it to prepare drawings for use in videos or presentations. The video below shows you how to access it and gives a (brief) introduction to using it.

(I will shortly add a post that shows it being used by students)

April 2016

I have prepared two very short introductions to screencasting on a computer as opposed to an iPad. Both methods are free and require no purchasing of additional software. One uses quicktime, software that comes available with Macs and the other uses a website, screencast-o-matic that can be accessed by both PC and Mac users.

Screencasts can also be produced on an iPad using the explain everything app. I haven’t included a video of this as I do not currently use an iPad in my classroom but you can see a video of this here.

I made these videos with my students in mind and would use these methods to introduce screencasting to my students before moving on to additional tasks that would require an ability to screencast. I will shortly be adding a post that will show some exemplar student work that utilised screencasting.

Screencasting with Quicktime

Screencasting with Screencast-o-matic