How To Screen Cast With Kindergarten Students

I am always looking for apps that empower children to engage in meaningful learning experiences. I promote apps that can be used for all ages of students across the curriculum to empower constructivist learning. Screen casting is the process of recording short videos where the author speaks, types, writes, draws, constructs and records their thoughts. Everything spoken, written and added by the student is recorded in sequence. So why is screen casting such a valuable learning activity?

These are the three key benefits of screen casting for students:

• Student Thinking: It provides the teacher with access to a student’s thinking. For example screen casting provides an avenue for students to articulate their thoughts when solving maths problem, critiquing a piece of poetry or labelling a scientific diagram.
• Refine Learning: It allows students to refine their ideas and understanding whilst creating a quality and interesting pieces of work.
• Authentic Audience: It can be shared with global audience, thus empowering the student with a sense of purpose, meaning and motivation for quality.

I have come across three apps I use with students for screen casting. ShowMe and Educreations are both free apps that allow students to add a picture directly from the web or camera roll, draw and type text and add multiple pages of content. I have used this app with Kindergarten students to explain the life cycle of a frog, with Year 2 to label properties of 3D shapes and with Year 5 to explain long multiplication. Explain Everything is a paid app that has greater functionality such as ability to re-record, capacity to embed video and greater choice in formatting. This is good for a larger long term project or for creating teaching screen casts for students to watch. I have used Explain Everything with Year 3 to create digital books and Year 6 to create weather reports. Despite the advanced functionality of Explain Everything I prefer the simplicity of ShowMe and Educreations, particularly for primary aged students.

A few tips I use with my students when screen casting:

• Speak Softly: I always ask students to find their own place in the classroom away from others and use lowered voice tones.
• Think Then Speak: Students need to plan and consider what they are going to record. This may require writing notes before recording.
• Record In Parts: Take advantage of the pause button, the students do not need to record everything in one go. Using the pause button to gather thoughts will improve the quality of recording.
• Time Limits: I often model the activity before students work individually and give a suggested time length for the screen cast. If students are succinct in their recording it will far less time consuming marking their work.
• Write Your Name: The title of the screen cast should always include each student’s name, particularly if you are using a shared account. You need to identify student work after the the lesson to provide feedback.

My suggestion would be to start with Educreations or ShowMe. Create a class account using a generic email address and simple password. Then all your students can log on to the same account and upload their work. Begin with a simple lesson such as explaining a mathematical concept or labelling a diagram. Once you begin to use this skill I guarantee it will become a indispensable teaching tool.