Screencasting for the Online Classroom


CSI Staff
Staff Writer
Center for Support of Instruction
Published: January-February 2011

Category: » Online-pedagogy » Teaching-strategies

Introduction

This article briefly describes screencasts, discusses how they can be used in an online classroom, and provides tips and tricks for creating engaging and useful screencasts of your own. It also links to a tutorial on how to download and use a free screencasting tool to help you get started.

What is a Screencast?

In its simplest terms, a screencast is a video that shows what is happening on a computer screen. Anything you can display on your screen can be a part of the video. Also known as video screen capture, screencasting records activity on a computer screen and can include audio narration. As opposed to slide presentations that consist of static images and simple animations, a screencast can show “real” action or activity as it occurs on a computer—which can be useful when students cannot otherwise look over your shoulder and watch you do something directly—or help enliven instruction that is difficult to communicate through text alone. Screencasting is a multimedia alternative to videorecording and whiteboarding and helps fulfill a need for dynamic, engaging content.

Although they may look high tech, screencasts can be fairly simple to create; all that is needed is a computer, a microphone (if audio narration will be provided), and screencasting software.

Screencasting Uses and Examples

Screencasts are excellent for “show and tell” videos that visually explain details that may be difficult to convey using just text. For example, screencasts can be useful for:

  • Demonstrating a procedure in a software program
  • Explaining how to navigate to important information on a Web site
  • Showing how to calculate a mathematical problem
  • Clarifying an elaborate project or assignment

Because screencasts provide opportunities for teaching visually, they can benefit students with different learning styles. Some specific examples of screencasts in use at UMUC include the following:

Kathryn Klose, Associate Chair and Program Director of Financial Management & Accounting in the Graduate School, uses screencasts to demonstrate how to install and use accounting and finance software in several courses. She provides short videos with narratives to help explain the complex features of the software’s functionalities. She notes that using screencasts rather than just text to demonstrate intricate tasks that students need to perform—such as developing formulas in Excel—can be effective at enhancing how students learn in the online environment. 

Adjunct faculty member Linda Smelser created a screencast that provides a narrated tour of her WebTycho classroom, EDCP 100 Principles and Strategies of Successful Learning. The course is targeted to new and returning university students, helping set the stage for their educational success. Linda turned to screencasting when she noticed that students asked the same navigation questions every semester—and even multiple times during the same class. She notes, “I found that this brief five-minute video that I created and posted to the class reduced the number of questions about navigating my online classroom.” Linda also uses screencasts to explain complicated assignments. 

In DBST 652 Advanced Relational/Object-Relational Database Systems, a course that explores advanced concepts of relational database systems, adjunct faculty member Marion Smith uses screencasts for instruction and student engagement. As an instructional tool, she says, “There are many benefits to using audio and visuals. I find that my verbal explanations that accompany a video reinforce new vocabulary and concepts associated with a course.” She also asks students to create screencasts to share and demonstrate their progress on their class projects and to help keep them engaged. Her students have openly noted how much they appreciate both her instructional screencasts as well as those developed by their fellow students.  

Screencasting Tips and Tricks

Screencasts can add depth to your black-and-white text and to the WebTycho environment. Below are some tips that may help you when you develop a screencast:

  • Decide ahead of time what kind of video you want to make and how you want to present your material. Do you need to record more than one window/screen? Do you have all the material at hand? Will you be recording audio? Do you need a script?
  • If you are recording audio, check that your headset is properly connected to your computer and that the audio controls and voice recording levels of your headset are set to a medium level. (You can do this by going to the Control Panel and then selecting Sounds and Audio Devices. From the Audio tab, check that the headset is selected as the input device for Sound recording and that the Volume is set to a medium level. Then click the Voice tab and check the same information for Voice recording.)
  • To keep students interested and engaged with the content, screencasts should be no more than 5 to 10 minutes in length and provide information that explains one concept or demonstrates one procedure at a time. By keeping screencasts short and focused on one idea, students will have an easier time following them.
  • If you are having difficulty keeping your video within the time constraints, you may want to break up your topic into subtopics and record a separate video for each subtopic or revise the script to make the video more concise.
  • In the WebTycho classroom, screencasts work best as attachments in the conference area due in part to their large file size.
  • If the file size of your recorded screencast is too large to add as an attachment in a WebTycho conference (50 MB maximum), consider recording a smaller frame size, removing unnecessary audio when you re-record, and/or cutting down on the amount of times you change the background of the video. For example, if you start the video on a blank Excel document and then load a high-resolution image, the file size will increase because you are increasing the color information.

NOTE: When developing audiovisual material, it is important to also provide a transcript. Transcripts serve students with hearing disabilities (who may not be able to hear the audio), students with visual disabilities (whose screen readers or text-to-speech programs may not be able to access the object), and the various learning styles of UMUC’s multi-generational student body. A speaker’s script (which can be prepared before recording the audio) can serve as a transcript.

Free Screencasting Tool to Try: Jing

Screencasting software has become more popular in the last few years, though many of the programs come with a price tag. Jing is an easy-to-use screencasting tool that is free to download and install and is already being used by some UMUC faculty (including all those mentioned earlier) with great success. Kathryn Klose describes Jing as “a great ‘tech-in-ten’ technology, meaning it's a technology that one can learn in about ten minutes” and indicates that it is a favorite in her teaching toolkit. Jing’s free version allows users to create screencasts up to 5 minutes long and provides the user with a file that can be saved to the desktop and uploaded into a WebTycho classroom.

For more information on how to create a screencast with Jing, see the accompanying Jing Tutorial to get started.

Editor's note: Former CSI staff member Ivy Roberts contributed to this article.

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