Using Screencasts, Instagram, and Flipagram

For the last several weeks, I’ve been sharing about different tools to connect your library with students, teachers, and the community. Today I’d like to share a few more helpful presentation tools and some fun apps that many of our students are already familiar with.

Screencasts:

Screencast-O-Matic:

This tool is a great way to share a lesson, presentation, or tutorial video with students and teachers. Screencast-O-Matic allows you to record up to a 15 minute video of your computer screen and save them in your account or upload them to your YouTube channel. Then you can easily upload them to Google Classroom or share the URL with anyone. You can create tutorials that can be accessed anywhere or a lesson for a flipped or blended lesson that students can watch at home. Tip: This program wouldn’t load in my Chrome browser, so I switched to Mozilla Firefox and didn’t have any problems at all. The only drawback I found was that it doesn’t allow for editing in the free version. If you make a huge mistake or leave something out, you’ll have to delete the entire video and start over. Overall, this is a very easy program to use and even easier to share! Here’s my very first Screencast-O-Matic. I was a little self-conscious about having to record my voice, but I’m sure I’ll get over it as I use this more. It’s a great resource!

Jing:

Jing needs to be installed on your Mac or PC in order to use it. You can capture a screenshot like you would with a snipping tool and add your own color annotations. You can also create a video, but the video is limited to 5 minutes.

Instagram:

Who doesn’t love Instagram? Most young people love to post and follow on Instagram. My students are always amazed (or amused) when they discover I have an Instagram. They think it’s really cool that someone my. . . er, well . . . that I have an Instagram account! If you’re wondering how you could possibly use this app for educational purposes, try some of the following:

-Showcase student work

-Capture field trip memories

- What would your favorite novel or movie character post?

-Reading promotions

-Share an image for a writing prompt

* To protect students’ privacy, create a classroom account and set it to private.

Flipagram:

I’m flipping out over Flipagram! This app is similar to iMovie but simplified. It’s also available for android users. Having access to videos, photos, and music on a personal device makes this a simple app for creating videos. Add your own downloaded music or use the stock tunes, or keep the audio recorded with your original video.

Teaching ideas for Flipagram:

-Retell a story

-Create a video of a field trip

-Create a stop-motion video with music

-Create an instructional video

Flipagram allows you to select your photos, narrate, and text or draw, choose your music, set your speed, and share! Although it’s not as easy to use as Animate It Lite when creating a stop-motion video, it does allow you to make a longer video, add music, and control the speed. Here’s my attempt at a very simple animation.

The main takeaway this week: Become familiar with the digital tools students enjoy using, and then hijack them as educational tools!