Those of us who are using Screencastify’s free plan will have some choices to make on Monday when the changes that Screencastify announced back in August take effect.
What’s Changing?
Starting on Monday, October 3rd Screencastify’s free plan will limit you to having just ten videos in your account at a time. Previously, you could have as many videos as you wanted in your account as long as they were each less than five minutes. The new free plan limits you to ten videos, but the videos can now be up to 30 minutes.
You can still export your videos as MP4 files. So if you find that you bump up against the ten video limit, you can export one or delete one to get back under that limit. But bear in mind that Screencastify is now limiting you to 30 minutes of export time in the free plan. That’s a change from the previous unlimited export time.
Screencastify vs. Chrome OS Screencasting
Screencastify built its reputation by being one of the first companies to offer a screencasting tool for Chromebooks. Then in June of this year Google added a screencasting tool to the Chrome operating system. In doing so it appears that Google is going after some of Screencastify’s market share.
Even in the free version Screencastify still has more editing options than the Chrome OS screencasting tool. That said, if you don’t need all of those options and just need some basic editing functions, the Chrome OS screencasting tool is probably going to be your better choice now because it offers unlimited video storage (via Google Drive).
Five Ways to Use Screencastify in Your Classroom
Build Interactive Questions Into Your VideosBlur Faces and Objects in Your VideosAdd Comments to Google DocsCreate Common Craft-style VideosRecord Virtual Tours
