This week in Education Technology, Rich McCue hosted a workshop where we learned how to make our own screencasting videos. Through this workshop, I discovered the benefits of screen-capture, video-editing, and even learned more about wordpress by using some plugins. For my screen-capture video, I decided to create a tutorial for the website GeoGuessr.com, a website that hosts a game. In the game, the player is dropped into a Google Streetview in a random country and has to discover clues to guess where in the world they might be located. I find the game very fun and educational!
To make the video, I first downloaded the widget for screencastify, a Google Chrome add-on. Through this app, I was able to record a screen-capture solely on my open browser tab. This was useful because it hid my desktop and all the other tabs I had open (for privacy purposes). Next, I recorded my screencapture video, briefly walking the viewer through GeoGuessr and explaining the broad concept of the game. Using the Screencastify app, I was able to edit the video, removing some unwanted lengths of video, and add a title card at the beginning.
After my video was edited to my liking, I uploaded it to Youtube; this allowed me to be able to link it to this WordPress page. In WordPress, I used the HP5 plugin to create an interactive video. After uploading my video to the plugin, I was able to add several multiple choice questions to my video. These questions prompt the viewer to guess which country my current Geoguessr window was open to. I think that the H5P plugin is great and definitely something that I would use in an educational setting. I believe that it adds another dimention to the video that invites the viewer to engage deeper with the content.
With the Screencastify widget and the H5P plugin, I am able to quickly and easily make new kinds of videos that might help me teach students. Screen-casting videos will be necessary to direct students through any technologically-demanding online sources that I intend on using. Interactive videos, like those made with the H5P plugin, could be used for keeping students engaged through online content that I’ve created. Further, it could be a fun tool to teach to students, so they are able to create their own interactive videos.
Featured Picture: Katya Ross at: Unsplash