Mathcasts make sense!

As we get towards the end of the year, so many teachers are acutely aware of how many chapters they have yet to cover. Although it might be a little late this year, screencasting, used regularly throughout the year can help with this time crunch.

I regularly attend the Saturday webinars hosted by classroom2.0 and always learn something new.

This week the topic was mathcasts. I invited my whole math department because they all have either a smartboard or a wireless tablet and the smartboard software in their classrooms. The Saturday time didn’t work out for them so this morning I emailed them the link to the archive of the webinar.

The guest was Tim Fahlberg who is behind mathcasts.org .  This website is full of mathcasts for all levels. At the bottom of each page, a direct link to  the page is listed.

The easiest way to get started is to share a mathcast from this site that has already been made.

The second step is to create a mathcast. Our teachers have smartboards and the software has a built in screen recorder they can use while teaching. The playback file can be uploaded to schoolloop our CMS so students can review on their own time.

During the webinar, Tim shared the many ways that this can be done. Links to tools are here in the classroom 2.0 sharetabs link .

During the presentation he really stretched the use of the webinar software elluminate which was fun to watch. He demonstrated recording a mathcast using a livescribe pen on livescribe paper, while filming it live with a document camera via USB onto his screen which was simultaneously streaming out to viewers via elluminate. Phew!

Bonus participants with mathcast experience  included Graeme McNeil (The Math Maker), Colleen King (creator of the Math Playground) and Shamblesguru who shared a great resource page for screencasting. http://www.themathmaker.com/
http://www.mathplayground.com
http://www.shambles.net/pages/staff/screencast/

The third step is to have students create screencasts and start to create a library of them for students to use inside and outside of school for review.

Not just for math!

Tim mentioned during the webinar, that the idea behind mathcasts would work for other disciplines too. All subjects could screencast their key topics and create a library of examples. Science, language

An idea that is spreading

This morning Wesley Fryer tweeted out the link to this news video from a school training he was at on (coincidence!) Saturday. It encapsulates the idea of how screencasts can enhance how classroom time is spent.

Used schoolwide this idea has resulted in improved student engagement and learning.

To spread the idea around my own school sending out short Jing screencasts whenever I can, models this practice.

FYI: I now run small (2-4 people) classes and individual online tech sessions

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