Thursday, October 14, 2010

Screencasting Worked - Just Not How I Planned

Yesterday I created a screencast to help students in a math tutorial class designed for kids who are struggling with math. The topic was integers. Turns out the student who planted the seed of this idea became confused with her schedule, or chose not to show up. But for the kids who did show up, I created this screencast as support for them to use at home and at school:




When I ran into Susan later that day, I showed her the video. She was surprised and pleased that I had taken an interest in her academics, but I don't know yet if she checked out the video. But someone did.

Jeffrey, another student from the class caught up to me in the hall. He told me he watched the video last night.
  1. I asked if he thought it was helpful, and he said yes.
  2. I asked if his homework was complete - another yes.
  3. I asked him if he always completes his homework, and he replied no
  4. Finally I asked if he would like to see more screencasts about his homework - definitely yes.

I guess the question remains, with other staff adopt the idea of screencasting their lessons? I went around and informally shared my screencast with other staff, and told them what it was for. Most were hesitant, perhaps dreading an awful learning curve associated with learning how to screencast with Jing. Or, perhaps they don't believe that students will go to the video.

It is my goal this week to support one person who is interested in learning how to screencast their lessons.

2 comments:

E! said...

Awesome, James! Sometimes setting realistic goals (i.e. supporting one person) is what we need to do to get past the stumbling blocks. Good on ya!

NoraB said...

Hi James,
This is a wonderful way to support your students at home!
I have one idea to further enrich this screencast. Looking at this lesson through the eyes of a Grade 2 teacher, (remember back then!?!) I notice that the focus is purely on the manipulation of numbers. It might be helpful, for the student who is still struggling with the underlying math concepts, to complement your examples by also showing them in a visual format, ie. the number line, as well. This might help clarify "WHY" you choose to add at one time but subtract at another time.
Thanks for sharing this super example of using a free resource!