Creating, accessing and sharing multimedia learning resources with students both within the classroom and beyond it has never been easier – Matthew McDonald has some tips to help you take advantage of the latest technology…
Creating, accessing and sharing multimedia learning resources with students both within the classroom and beyond it has never been easier – Matthew McDonald has some tips to help you take advantage of the latest technology…
We have all heard the proverb, ‘Tell me and I’ll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I’ll understand’. So imagine if you could not only do all of that with your students, but then also pause, rewind and reflect upon what you’ve discovered together. Recording lessons or tasks can be scary for a teacher, but innovating pedagogy is a driving force for creating engaging content and outstanding lessons, and great educators will try any idea that is going to support young people, inspire their minds, and fuel the excitement of a positive learning and teaching environment.
The logistics for recording a lesson or task can be something as simple as whipping out a smart phone and capturing yourself explaining a home learning task, or using a more sophisticated system like iRIS Connect. Either way, this kind of activity can have a profound impact on students. It is often argued that video can never replace a teacher – and I fully endorse that notion – but executed correctly, its use can massively support learning and engagement both inside and outside the traditional classroom environment.
Consider YouTube for example. It gets over 3 billion views per day and you can bet our students are among those avid users, yet how many departments have a YouTube channel? Sounds like hard work? In fact it takes minutes to set up and even less time with the correct materials to post a video, so why don’t we teachers embrace this technology that our students are so accustomed to and startle them with what we can do? With security features in abundance it really is something worth taking a look at. Consider your class members getting X amount of home learning tasks per week that are written down in a planner or set via a VLE, then imagine them being given a YouTube clip address on which their teacher has recorded a task and tell me that they won’t be excited by it… let’s talk in their language!
There are loads of different ways that teachers can record content, but the key is finding the right one for you, and organising your recordings so that your students can access them quickly, easily and from anywhere. A fabulous example of this came from a senior leader at my school who recorded eight revision lessons via iRIS Connect and handed it to her A-Level class on individual memory sticks – a perfect, tailor-made resource leading up to the exams. Alternatively, there are specialist companies that offer useful CPD resources; Mediamerge, for example, produces pre-recorded classroom observation videos using multiple cameras and including feedback and grades based on the Ofsted framework.
If recording full lessons in the classroom is not for you, then there are numerous free online resources such as ‘jing’ or the really simple ‘screenr’, which will record whatever is happening on your computer screen alongside your voice and send it directly to a YouTube page, enabling you to put together a whole range of learning resources from homework quizzes to summaries of key topics, in your own and wherever is most convenient. These applications often require no downloading of software and can capture a PowerPoint presentation whilst you talk over the top of it, or an exam paper as you explain how to gain the marks when answering it. They are very simple to use and the websites take new users through a simple guide to getting started. Here are just a few options you might want to explore, to see what is most likely to suit you and your students:
Sparkol
VideoScribe gives teachers the ability to explain concepts, illustrate talks and engage an audience in a new and massively engaging way. Sparkol essentially gives every educator the ability to become a fantastic illustrator – a very cheap app and an alternative desktop version are available, and both make recording lessons and delivering great content a breeze.
Screenr
Produce instant and very simple screencasts; just click record. Screenr’s web-based screen recorder records your screen and voice then gives you a web link for the recording. This would be my first port of call for any novice trying his or her hand at recording lessons or tasks for students.
Lecture Monkey
Lecture Monkey is essentially a lecture recording device for the iPhone, but can be adapted for mainstream lessons. Whether you are a student recording a lesson for later review, or a teacher doing it for a whole class, Lecture Monkey will capture the important parts – sound, whiteboard and presentations
Explain Everything
Explain Everything is an easy-to-use design tool that lets you annotate, animate, and narrate explanations and presentations. It’s a little different from a straightforward lesson capture device, and requires a greater investment of time and effort, but has huge potential for the upper key stages.
Educreations
Educreations turns your iPad into a recordable whiteboard, enabling you to create great video tutorials by simply touching, tapping and talking. With voice recording, writing, photos and text, it’s really simple to share the results through email – and there’s a great archive of lessons already recorded at educreations.com, too.
Camtasia
Camtasia gives you the tools you need to record on-screen activity; edit and enhance your content; and share in high-quality to viewers anywhere. This is more advanced and includes many more tools than the previous pieces of software – it comes with an ample price tag, but one that in my opinion it deserves.
ABOUT THE EXPERT
MATTHEW MCDONALD IS DIRECTOR OF LEARNING AND TEACHING FOR THE WAKEFIELD CITY ACADEMIES TRUST, SPECIALIST LEADER OF EDUCATION (SLE) FOR HUMANITIES, AND A NATIONAL LEADING EXPERT ON MOBILE LESSON CAPTURING DEVICE IRIS CONNECT. FOLLOW HIM ON TWITTER – AND FEEL FREE TO ASK ANY FURTHER QUESTIONS @MACCA_MJM
