The screencast option: excellent examples from the past two weeks

[Maria Droujkova]

For some of the tasks, you can use either blogs or screencasts. Check out these excellent examples of using screencasts for our tasks (and beyond):

Paul made an intro tutorial about Wolfram|Alpha and its use for systems. It shows the power of combining "search" and "solver" functions in one tool. You can also see how a 3-minute screencast is worth gazillions of words, because you can point and show motion: http://www.screencast.com/users/prm_arcadia/folders/Jing/media/bb48411c-bc04-475b-91f3-038cb0abe0e8 Last week, Paul used the webcam option to capture a short video of himself talking. The plus is we get to see him live; the minus is the files are heavy: http://www.screencast.com/users/prm_arcadia/folders/Jing/media/1869ee01-a0c2-44e7-a9da-6527a62f840d

Doug used the subject menu to find systems of equations. Note how Doug shares his thoughts on limitations of W|A as we are looking at the graph. This part of the recording won't take as much memory as moving (video) parts, but it is still visually interesting because of the background. http://www.screencast.com/users/Doug_Snyder/folders/Jing/media/2e012158-667e-4da4-9bbf-93e90d2e95d1

Grace's screencast is an example of "voice-only" use: she tells a story using Dan's portrait as her background. The focus here is on the ideas and passion of the story, so these representations are quite appropriate. Anything moving on the screen could distract from listening: http://www.screencast.com/users/GASS2/folders/Default/media/848b7d61-0498-4aaa-9d2f-9d7fc11d091d

Kate used a similar approach, focusing on the five-item list of student problems and discussing the items in voice: http://www.screencast.com/users/KTgee/folders/Jing/media/e6126dfd-9e41-4ebe-8254-dc57702f832e

Peter's creation reminded me of Pecha Kucha masterpieces. He used a series of images, put together very thoughtfully, as a backdrop for his story. You can see how the images and the voice story amplify one another! http://www.screencast.com/users/Peterhorn33/folders/Jing/media/8fafaf1c-376c-4d18-984e-acbe684d2e07


You can embed your screencasts into blog posts to give some text background to them, to allow people's comments, and to make it easier for other teachers to discover your work.


Cheers,
Maria Droujkova

Make math your own, to make your own math.