Screencast-o-matic

If it's free, it's for me!

While doing a random blog search, I came across Tim Lauer’s blog Education/Technology. His latest entry introduced me to a tool in part of the new trend in collaborative and social uses of the Internet in the movement known as Web 2.0. Screencast-O-Matic offers FREE (yes, I said it…FREE) screencast creating, hosting, and searching. A screencast, for those who do not know, captures what one sees on his/her computer screen and any audio narration along with it.

Before I went to Screencast-O-Matic site, I had never created a screencast. I watched a brief tutorial on the website and tried out what I learned. It was easy. Then I started searching for preexisting screencasts to see what other users created and tagged for the public eye (since the website also allows users to make screencasts private). I typed in a few vague search words and was surprised at how many results the search yielded. I watched several screencasts from the searches I did and became more and more impressed the more I watched.

I’m a pre-service teacher and we all know teachers spend too much of their own money in and on their classrooms. I am a big supporter of free services that can benefit students and teachers. I think screencasting is an excellent resource for the classroom. For example, this fall I will be working with 5th graders again. Let’s say we were doing an in class activity creating a concept map using Inspiration. At home I could create a screencast that detailed specific instructions for the students. Once in class, I could simply provide the link to my screencast and let the students watch it to gain an understanding of using Inspiration. This would allow me the freedom to circulate around the classroom and monitor student progress. It would essentially be like having another teacher in the classroom. Additionally, I could search for preexisting screencasts that already explains how to use Inspiration and potentially save myself even more time.