BP13_2009103_Web 2.0 Screentoaster

When we first learned about ScreenFlow several months ago, it instantly became my new favorite software application. It was easy to use, I immediately had dozens of ideas for how to use it in my teaching to create resources for my students, and after about an hour of playing around and watching the demo videos, I had created my first screencast. As the semester progressed, and my students were learning from the videos I was making, I kept thinking that it would be an even better educational experience for them if they could make their own videos. Unfortunately, our school doesn’t own ScreenFlow, and I don’t have the money in my budget to spend $1500 to buy enough copies for every computer in the lab. I thought about buying one copy and having students rotate through the one computer that would have it, but that just wouldn’t be practical.

Then I learned about ScreenToaster (www.screentoaster.com), a Web 2.0 tool that students can use to create similar types of screencasts to the ones that I was creating with ScreenFlow. ScreenToaster can record video from the screen, audio from the built-in microphone, and allegedly video from the iSight camera, though I haven’t yet been able to get that feature to work. Videos can be exported as .swf or .mov files, which can then be posted online or edited further with iMovie.

I’m excited to try implementing ScreenToaster with my Advanced Studio Tech class next semester. I’ve always wanted to find a way to have the AST students create an instructional module on Logic Express for the Exploring Studio Tech students to use, but I never felt that I had access to the right tools to actually make that happen. I didn’t think that taking still screenshots and posting them to a webpage or creating a printable PDF would be viable formats for this project. Now that I know about ScreenToaster, I’m planning to implement this next semester with my students and possibly integrate it into my action research.

The video below is a sample video I created with ScreenToaster.

References:

ScreenToaster - online screen recorder. Capture screencasts instantly. (2009). Retrieved October 18, 2009 from http://www.screentoaster.com/