Screen Casting Ideas

Screen Casting Lesson Idea(s)--

There are a few ways that I thought using screen casting would be interesting and essential for. One, a screen cast could be used as a part of the lesson while a substitute teacher is present with students when the regular teacher needs to be out. Sometimes it is difficult to explain to a sub how to teach a mini-lesson on a certain topic and you don’t want the students to pause from doing the assignment while you are away. Using screen casting, the teacher could pre-record a screen cast of a specific mini-lesson before students got to working on their assignment for the day with the sub. This way, when the teacher returns, students will not be behind in the curriculum and the teacher will know that the material was taught in the right way (or in the exact way that they had intended).

Back to my issue concerning “absenteeism” from earlier in the course, screen casting could also be used for teachers to record pertinent information/lessons/examples that would be important for students who were absent during the actual face-to-face lesson to have seen. It is very difficult to catch absent students up on topics and lessons that take some time to explain. Usually they come back and get the gist of what the other students learned, but with a screen cast, they could get the exact same information as the others, most likely, without skipping a beat. This same idea could be used for students who were present during the lesson but need a refresher or could benefit from hearing and seeing the lesson demonstration more than once. In this sense, it could serve as a type of tutorial for individuals or groups of students that need extra help, time, or assistance to grasp concepts or how to perform an educational task.

For science classes, or classes that incorporate a lot of live demonstrations that might involve heavy set up and material preparation, screen casting could be used to actually present the demonstrations to students. This would save a secondary teacher from having to clean up and set up the demonstration area several times throughout the day. It would allow more time for further teaching or application of the lesson for students to be able to work.

Example: In teaching writing, I often have to use large chart paper to demonstrate how to brainstorm and begin doing a specific type of writing (personal narrative, essay, literary essay, etc.) Each type of writing has certain elements within it that must be present. Teaching this seven times in a day means using a lot of chart paper, since I want each class to experience the steps of writing with fresh examples and to have the charts posted in the classroom to refer to later on and throughout the writing process. With screen casting, I could create a movie clip demonstrating the concept about writing that I would teach that day, share examples (recording writing on the chart paper) and create spaces for pausing the video to actually ask students questions, answer their questions, or to have them demonstrate concepts or practice with a partner. I would actually make the chart posters during the video lesson and students would still be able to use them as references because they would then be posted in the classroom for them to view and utilize.
A couple of other ideas that came to mind for using screen casting in an English classroom would be use for centers and to teach reading strategies. With the right amount of technical equipment, a screen cast could be created and set up as a tutorial for students participating in each individual center. This way, the teacher would not have to be nailed down to one particular center for a long period of time. This would also save the teacher from having to do a lengthy presentation and demonstration with the entire class prior to center time beginning, which could take away from application of learning time. Students would travel to their centers, view the screen cast along with the small group they are with in the center, and then get to work on whatever the center is focusing on.

I teach reading strategies by demonstrating my thought process while I read aloud to the students. Using screen casting, I could pre-record myself reading and demonstrating aloud a particular reading strategy. The students viewing the screen cast would have the same reading material available to them to look over as I read on video. This way, multiple reading strategies could be taught at a time, the teacher is free to assist with groups viewing the screen casts to check for understanding, and again, absent students would be able to later go back and learn how to use certain reading strategies without missing out on the most important ideas.