A couple of days ago I wrote a short post about the changes to Screencastify’s free plan. At the end of that post I included some ideas for using Screencastify in your classroom. If you missed that short list, here are the ideas in more detail.
Add Interactive Questions Into Your Videos
Adding interactive questions into your instructional videos is a great way to make sure that students actually watch your lesson all the way through. It’s also a good way to determine if you need to re-teach something or alter your explanation of a concept. You can do that by looking to see if there is a pattern to the answers your students choose while watching your video. Here’s a demo of how to use Screencastify to add questions into your videos.
Blur Faces and Objects in Your Videos
The option to blur things in your videos is a great way to protect your and your students’ privacy when publishing a video. Besides blurring faces you may also want to blur names or email addresses if they appear in a screencast video. Watch this video to learn more.
Comment on Google Docs
The process of using Screencastify and Google Keep to create a video comment bank for Google Docs is fairly straight-forward. First, record your short video comments or short lesson with Screencastify. Second, get the “share” link from Screencastify. Third, create a note in Google Keep that contains the link to the video (I recommend giving the notes easy-to-remember names and labels). Finally, whenever you need the video link just open Google Keep in the sidebar of the Google Doc you’re viewing and copy the video link from the Google Keep into your comment. Watch this video for a demonstration of the whole process.
Make a Common Craft-style Video
A little more than decade ago Common Craft created a whole new style of explantory video. You and your students can make your own videos in that simple style by using a screencasting tool like Screencastify and Google Slides. Watch this video to see how that’s done.
Record a Narrated Google Earth Tour in Your Web Browser
The web version of Google Earth doesn’t have the same tour recording tools that are available in Google Earth Pro. The solution to that problem is to use a tool like Screencastify to record your tour. Watch this video to see how you can do that.
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