Thing 9: Taming the Web

Screencast-o-matic presents interesting features that it had never occurred to me to use.  I do often explain the features of a particular website to students, since there are many excellent websites for teaching science concepts, especially topics like genetics, cellular energetics, biodiversity, and plate tectonics.  Typically I will take a few minutes in class to highlight the features of a site, but if a student is not paying attention or is absent I either need to re-explain it later or ask another student to give them the low-down.  I could use this feature to record a short website tour, then post it for students to view if they need a refresher, if they are absent, or if we run out of time in class.

The "pro" features could be useful, but would not really be necessary for someone who had Camtasia or similar software.  I used Harry's copy to try out Camtasia, and I think it would be worthwhile for the school to buy a site license.

I tried out doing a video tour of a PBS website on plate tectonics called "Savage Earth"  It seems to work just fine, except that there is no audio because I did not have a microphone available.  I have one, but it's at school and I am trying this out at home.  I think I will try this again later for explaining some other assignments - I often use web interfaces for homework and for lab explorations in class.  The "publish to YouTube" option looks interesting and could be useful.  I suppose if you publish to a file you would be able to edit/save/re-post in whatever manner you want - also potentially useful.  But a microphone is a must in order to take advantage of this!