I started experimenting with screencasting software (apps? Must I use that word?) for my iPad earlier this term, mostly out of frustration with trying to use a desktop effectively. I found several well-reviewed apps available, but the one that has so far worked best for me is called Educreations. It was created for doing exactly what I want to do — make short videos for classes — and its iPad app is very user-friendly. You download it, create an account (free!), and then you just write on your screen and talk like you normally would. When you’re done, the video is saved and uploaded to your Educreations profile automatically, where you can make it publicly visible, visible to only your students, or private. (The students feature involves enrolling your class at Educreations, which seems like a neat feature I might play with in the future). You can also embed the video into your blog or right into Moodle.
The downside to using Educreations is (as Alice pointed out to me yesterday!) that if anything happens to their web site/server, you lose your videos. They promise that the ability to download your videos is coming… at some point, but until then, the best way to save them is to play them back full-screen while running a screencasting software like Screen-Cast-o-Matic.
I created a short series of videos to help my students through Chapter 3.1 in the Bittinger basic math textbook. Unfortunately, the embed code doesn’t play well with WordPress, so I can’t share them here, but they are all publicly shared with the Educreations community (and you!) if you visit my Educreations profile. You can also find there a wealth of screencasts by other teachers sorted by subject.
The 40-Hour Adjunct 