I first learned of Screencast-O-Matic through my Master of Educational Technology degree with Boise State University's EDTECH department. It's a simple and free way to create video tutorials on almost any topic. By using YouTube as my delivery vehicle, any student with an Internet connection can view the videos. Most of the videos I make are three minutes or under. I find that brevity is essential, as it's easy to tune out anything that isn't concise or straightforward.
I'll sometimes play a video at the beginning of class when I'm introducing a new skill, task, or concept, and then have students to refer back to the video on their own as needed. This helps eliminate unnecessary repetition, as students who got it the first time can begin their work, while others who need the information or steps repeated can cue up the video and watch at their own pace. Of course, if there's something they don't understand in the video, I am there in class to answer their questions.
To be clear, I am not assigning videos to students to watch at home, a la the flipped classroom. Rather, these videos aid me when giving direct instruction in the classroom.
I hope to blog regularly this week about both my presentation and some of the session highlights I attend. In particular, I'm excited about hearing Google's Jaime Casap and New Jersey high school principal Eric Sheninger.
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