This week’s educational technology seminar content piece was about the use of interactive media to teach lessons or concepts in all subjects. Specifically, we touched on ScreenCastify (and other screen recording software) and H5P. Using media that students can interact with has a high potential to keep them engaged while viewing it when done well.

ScreenCastify is a service that is free for students and educators and allows the user to record their screen. This tech is used a lot in online education websites such as Khan Academy. Some educational Youtubers also use this, such as The Organic Chemistry Tutor, Physics Girl, and 3Blue1Brown. One thing all of these content creators have in common is that they employ screen recording to walk students slowly though complex mathematics and science topics. They break down problems into small pieces on their tablets and record the process.

Since I am working towards becoming a science educator, I think using screen capture tech to make my own supplemental course videos to in person lessons could be a game changer for my students. Many students struggle with STEM topics and require additional examples and learning support to grasp the content. Showing examples in video format allows students to be able to slow down, speed up, pause, and replay to their needs. It is also convenient for them to watch at a time that works best for them.

H5P adds another layer of interactivity. This software allows the user to embed quizzes, pop up comments, or other engaging content to the screen recording. Bringing this back to my example of screen recording additional example problems, I think I could use this technology to periodically include “check in” questions. Throughout the examples I could ask students to do a short quiz that would help them assess their own understanding, and determine what they already know and understand, and what key content pieces they may not yet understand. This allows them to be able to then approach me with further questions which we can break down to help them overcome those knowledge hurdles.

To build my understanding of both pieces of software, I made a short tutorial of how to use my university’s learning platform, Brightspace (which is actually a lot less straightforward than you may think!) As sometimes happens with technology, the embedding of the video did not work correctly, so my class had to use a workaround by uploading it to another webpage and linking the webpage on this blog post. Creativity endures! If you would like to view it, please navigate to the attached website below where you will find the video.

I hope you feel as inspired as I do about the potential of content creation via these fantastic tools! I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

Selena’s screencastify content

Cover Photo by Austin Distel on Unsplash