Showing posts with label video creation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label video creation. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 30, 2023

How to Add Timestamps to Your YouTube Videos

When you're publishing videos that are longer than five or six minutes on your YouTube channel it can be helpful to viewers to add some timestamps to the video's description. Including timestamps in the description lets your viewers click to jump to an exact mark in the video. There are a couple of ways that you can do this and they're both easy to do. In the video that is embedded below I demonstrate how add timestamps to the videos that you post on YouTube.

Video - How to Timestamp Your YouTube Videos



Applications for Education
I generally don't recommend making instructional videos for kids longer than about ten minutes at the most. But if you do or if you've recorded something like a livestream of a review session, adding timestamps can be beneficial to students. For example, let's say that you hosted a YouTube Live session in which you reviewed the American Revolution and answered questions from students. When you go to post the recording of that session, add some timestamps so that students can then jump to sections that address their questions.

Wednesday, May 24, 2023

Ten Ways to Use Adobe Express in School

I've made a handful of videos about using Adobe Express in your classroom. Those videos include making videos with Adobe Express and making custom QR codes with it. Those are just a couple of the many ways to use Adobe Express in your classroom. Let's take a look at some of the many ways that you and your students can use Adobe Express.

Graphic Design
Create graphics like posters, announcements, and Internet memes.

    • Students and teachers can create simple posters to print and post in their schools to announce club meetings, campaigns for class elections, or to post encouraging messages to students.

    • To help students understand and show that they understand what propaganda messages look like, I have had them create simple early 20th Century-style propaganda posters of their own. Adobe Spark has built-in image search that can help students find pictures to use for those posters. Students can also upload pictures they've found in the public domain.
    • Create a meme-style graphic to share on your classroom, library, or school website. The graphic could be intended to encourage students and parents to remind each other of an upcoming school event. You could also create a meme to encourage students to continue reading over the summer. 

    Videos
    Videos are created by adding text and images to slides. You can record yourself talking over each slide. A library of free music is available to layer under your narration or you can use that music in lieu of narration.

    • Create a short flipped-lesson. The recording tool makes it easy to precisely record your narration over the slides in your lesson. 
    • Have your students create video lessons. The slide aspect of the video tool lends itself to students creating short Ken Burns-style documentary videos. Have them use Spark's search tool to find images to use in their videos or have them use a place Flickr's The Commons to find historical images. I've had students make this style of video to tell the stories of people moving west across the United States in the 19th Century. 
    • This is the time of year for end-of-school assemblies and celebrations. Use the video creation tool to make a video of highlights of the school year. Rather than narrating the video you can use music from Adobe's library. 
    Webpages
    Create simple web pages to showcase pictures, posters, videos, text, and links. 
    • Create an event invitation page. Create a page that outlines the highlights of an upcoming school event like a fundraiser or open house night. Include images of past events, images of prizes, or include a video about the event. Should you need people to register for your event, include a link to a Google Form. (Learn how to use Google Forms).
    • Create a digital portfolio. Students can organize their pages into sections to showcase videos they've made, documents they've written, and their reflections on what they've learned. 
    • Make a multimedia timeline. There are two ways to make timelines in Adobe Express. Ask your students to research a series of events, find media representative of those events, caption the events and media with dates, and then place them into the proper order.
    • Write an image-based story. Students can write a story about themselves by using pictures they've taken placed into a webpage. Another way to think about image-based stories is to have students search for images and use them as writing prompts. Ask them to choose five pictures and write a story that connects the images. 

    Monday, May 8, 2023

    Seven Simple Steps for Creating Videos In Your Classroom


    On page 76 of Invent To Learn Gary Stager and Sylvia Martinez write, "The movie can be done without a storyboard or script, the 3D object may not be the most precisely planned out, but the point is to create something that can be shared and talked about." Later in the same chapter they advise avoiding over-teaching planning as it can stifle creativity in some students.  

    For years my outline for student video projects was outline, gather, construct, revise, and share. In fact, just yesterday I shared that outline in a presentation. After reading and reflecting on Stager and Martinez's advice I'm changing my outline. We're well aware that most students when given some time will figure out how to use a video editing tool. We don't need to spend lots of time teaching that as most of our kids will be biting their tongues as we fumble with things they already know how do or at least feel confident that they can do. Therefore, my new process is as outlined below. (Bear in mind, this is a process for videos that will have a finished length of five minutes or less).

    1. Create - let the kids have a crack at making their videos. If some students have a nature inclined to planning first, let them. If others want to jump into the process right away, that's great too. When I make screencast videos I don't always plan them first, I just make them. If the first attempt doesn't result in a polished work, that's okay because now I know what I need to change for the next attempt.

    2. Reflect - take a look at what was made. What is good about it? What needs to be changed?

    3. Outline - create that outline or storyboard now that you know what to keep and what to change.

    4. Create - this is the second attempt at the video.

    5. Revise - take a look at what the second attempt at creation yielded. Revise the outline again for the next round of editing or re-shooting.

    6. Create - this is the second round of editing or it could be a complete re-shoot of a video.

    7. Share - when you're happy with your video (it may take many more rounds of steps 5 and 6) share it with the world. Share it on Next Vista for Learning, YouTube, your classroom blog, or anywhere else that there is a potential audience for your work.

    Thursday, April 20, 2023

    Four Easy Ways to Make End-of-Year Slideshow Videos

    Even though the cold and rainy weather we're experiencing here in Maine makes it feel like summer is a long way off, it's not. I was reminded of this yesterday afternoon when I got my first email of the spring in which someone asked for advice about making an end-of-year video for her grade six class. 

    I get emails about this topic every spring and I'm always happy to help because it's fun to summarize and celebrate the school year in a short audio slideshow video. These are the tools that I'm recommending for that purpose this spring. 

    Adobe Express Video
    Adobe Express was previously known as Adobe Spark. I've been using it since its launch seven or eight years ago. Adobe Creative Cloud Express makes it easy for students to create succinct audio slideshow videos. It includes a library of background music that you can insert into your videos. Finally, Adobe Creative Cloud Express is a collaborative tool so you can invite a colleague to work on developing an end-of-year slideshow video with you. Watch this video to learn how to make a video with Adobe Creative Cloud Express.



    Canva
    Canva offers two ways to create audio slideshow videos. The first way is to simply put together a series of slides and then select a soundtrack to play in the background. That process is demonstrated here. The other method is to use Canva's full video editor to add narration and custom timings to an audio slideshow video. That process is demonstrated in this video.



    Microsoft Photos
    Microsoft Photos includes a video creation tool for making short audio slideshow-style videos. You'll find this by just opening the native photos app in Windows 10. Within the editor there are tools for adding animated effects to still images, insert your existing video clips into a video project, and tools for adding audio to your video. There's also a great option to search for Creative Commons licensed images and insert them directly into your video project. The best part of that feature is that attribution information is automatically added onto the images you choose through the built-in search tool. In the following video I provide a demonstration of how to create a video in Microsoft Photos in Windows 10.



    Google Photos
    In Google Photos there is a section called "utilities." It is in the utilities section that you'll find the video creation tool. To use it all you need to do is select up to 50 pictures and or videos that you have stored in your Google Photos account. Google Photos will then automatically select display length for each image or video and automatically add background music to your video. If you don't like what was automatically selected for your video, you can manually adjust display length and choose different background music. 

    Watch this short video to learn how to make an audio slideshow video with Google Photos. 



    The video creation tool in Google Photos does limit you to 50 images per video. If you need to make a longer video, you could make two or three videos in Google Photos then download them and combine them in iMovie or WeVideo. 

    Thursday, March 16, 2023

    An Overview of Using and Detecting Artificial Intelligence

    This week's news that Google Workspace will have new artificial intelligence tools added to it throughout the year was not unexpected. It was another sign that if you haven't being paying attention to the development of AI tools this year, you should start paying attention to them. Even if your school tries to ban or block AI tools, students will figure out a way to use them outside of school if not in your school. With that out of the way, here's a round-up of some the AI tools that I've written and or made videos about in recent months. 

    A Short Overview of ChatGPT

    ChatGPT is an artificial intelligence tool that will create documents for you based on some minimal input from you. For example, I simply typed into ChatGPT "Ten Canva Features for Students" and got this article. ChatGPT can also be used to create poems like this one about the sunglasses worn by Geraint Thomas

    With a little tweaking of what you put into ChatGPT you can create longer articles than the one that I mentioned above. A simple, "tell me more" or "what about X" can generate more material from ChatGPT. 

    Video - A Short Overview of ChatGPT

    Magic Write

    Magic Write is the artificial intelligence tool built into Canva Docs. Magic Write works in a manner that is quite similar to ChatGPT. To use Magic Write you simply select it from the insert menu in Canva Docs. Once Magic Write is opened you then enter a short prompt like "green screen video tips" and Magic Write generates a short list or paragraph for you (formatting depends on the prompt). You can then insert that writing into your document as it was written or you can edit it before including it in your document. Watch this short video to see how Magic Write in Canva works. 

    Video - How to Use Artificial Intelligence in Canva Documents

    Turn Writing Into Videos

    ChatGPT might be the first thing you think of when you read AI today, but there have been plenty of other AI tools before it. One such tool is Lumen5. Lumen5 is a tool that will produce a video for you based upon your written work.

    To create a video with Lumen5 you can enter the URL of your published work or submit the text of an article you've written. Lumen5 will then select highlights from your writing to feature in a video. The video will always begin with the title of your article. From there it will use any subheadings or section headings that you have in your article to create sections of your video. If you don't have subheadings or section headings in your article, Lumen5 will attempt to pull the keywords or phrases from each paragraph. Watch my demo below to see how easy it is to use Lumen5. 

    Video - How to Quickly Turn Written Articles Into Videos

    Concept Maps Created by AI

    Whimsical is a mind mapping and concept mapping tool that I first tried a couple of years ago. In addition to mind mapping and concept mapping it can also be used for creating Venn diagrams and other common charts in a collaborative environment. Now Whimsical has an artificial intelligence component. Whimsical's AI tool generates concept maps based on any keyword or phrase that you center on the screen. To use Whimsical's AI concept mapping tool you simply have to start a new concept map, enter a keyword or phrase, and then click the AI icon. The tool will then generate a simple concept map of linked terms and phrases. 

    Detecting Writing Created by AI

    Almost as quickly as new AI writing tools emerge, new tools to detect writing created by AI are emerging. I've tried three of them so far. All three are demonstrated in this short video. Watch the video as embedded below or skip down to read about the tools featured in the video. 

    Video - Three Tools for Detecting Articles Written by AI



    GPTZero is a free tool that analyzes text to determine whether or not it was written by an artificial intelligence program. There are some features of GPTZero that make it a bit different from some of the other AI detection tools that I've tried. First, in addition to accepting text that you copy and paste into it, GPTZero lets you upload PDFs, Word docs, and TXT files to analyze them. Second, GPTZero will highlight for you the parts of an article that it determines to have a high likelihood of being written by an AI tool. Third, GPTZero provides a perplexity score and a burstiness score to illustrate how it was determined that a document was or was not written by an AI tool. 

    AI Text Classifier is a free tool from Open AI, the makers of ChatGPT, that will detect whether or not a passage of text has been written with ChatGPT and similar AI writing tools. To use AI Text Classifier you do need to have registered for a free account on Open AI. Once you have an account you can use AI Text Classifier. To use AI Text Classifier you simply have to paste a block of writing (at least 1,000 characters, roughly 175 words) into the text field and click the submit button. AI Text Classifier will then rank the writing as very unlikely, unlikely, unclear if it is, possibly, or likely written by AI. For the record, AI Text Classifier classified my article about detecting writing created by AI as very unlikely to have been written by AI. 

    AI Writing Check is a free tool created by the collaborative efforts of the non-profits Quill.org and CommonLit. AI Writing Check is a tool that was created to help teachers try to recognize writing created through the use of artificial intelligence. To use AI Writing Check you simply have to copy a passage of text of 100 or more words and paste it into AI Writing Check. The tool will then tell you the likelihood that the writing has or has not been created by artificial intelligence. That's all there is to it. AI Writing Check isn't foolproof and as is pointed out on the site, students can still develop ways to get around tools designed to detect AI-generated writing. It's also worth noting that it can't handle more than 400 words at a time. 

    Crossplag AI Content Detector is a free tool that you can use to try to determine whether or not an AI tool was used to generate a passage of text. Like other AI detection tools, Crossplag AI Content Detector is easy to use. To use it you simply paste a block of text into the content detector and it will give a rating of likelihood that AI was used to create that text. Watch my short video below to see how it works. 

    Video - Another Tool for Detecting Writing Created by AI

    Tuesday, February 14, 2023

    Lumen5 - Quickly Turn Your Writing Into Videos

    ChatGPT might be the first thing you think of when you read AI today, but there have been plenty of other AI tools before it. One such tool is Lumen5. Lumen5 is a tool that will produce a video for you based upon your written work.

    To create a video with Lumen5 you can enter the URL of your published work or submit the text of an article you've written. Lumen5 will then select highlights from your writing to feature in a video. The video will always begin with the title of your article. From there it will use any subheadings or section headings that you have in your article to create sections of your video. If you don't have subheadings or section headings in your article, Lumen5 will attempt to pull the keywords or phrases from each paragraph. Watch my demo below to see how easy it is to use Lumen5. 

    Video - How to Quickly Turn Written Articles Into Videos



    Applications for Education
    Using a tool like Lumen5 can be a good way for students to create a visual summary of reports they've written. Tools like Lumen5 are also good for quickly creating a video of morning announcements for your school. Anyone who has a written list of the announcements could use Lumen5 to quickly create a video summary that is then shared on your school website or projected on screens in common areas like cafeterias in your school.

    By the way, the article that I used in demo video above can be read here.

    Friday, January 27, 2023

    How to Create a YouTube Channel

    If you're looking for a little weekend project, starting a YouTube channel could be a good one for you. Whether you make a YouTube channel simply to share instructional videos with your students or you make a YouTube channel with the hopes of becoming rich and famous, the process of getting started is the same. In the short video that is embedded below I demonstrate how you can start your YouTube channel in five minutes or less. 

    Video - How to Create a YouTube Channel



    After you've started your YouTube channel you'll probably want to take advantage of some of the editing tools available to you in your YouTube Studio. Here are three YouTube Studio settings you should know how to use.

    Video - Three YouTube Studio Settings You Should Know How to Use



    To grab the attention of potential viewers you will want to create custom thumbnails for your videos. Here's a tutorial on how to do that.

    Video - How to Create a Custom YouTube Thumbnail

    Thursday, January 5, 2023

    How to Use Custom Backgrounds in Animate from Audio Videos

    In this week's Practical Ed Tech Newsletter I featured a fun tool from Adobe called Animate from Audio. Based on the responses that I received to the newsletter, Animate from Audio is going to be used in a lot of classrooms over the next couple of weeks. A couple of the responses that I got were questions about using custom avatars and backgrounds in the videos. 

    Unfortunately, you can't upload your own avatar to the Animate from Audio editor. But you can upload your own background images to use in your videos. That process and the whole process of making a video with Animate from Audio is demonstrated in the video that is embedded below. 

    Video - How to Use Custom Backgrounds in Animate from Audio



    Applications for Education
    Like I did in the video above, by using custom backgrounds students can create short videos to explain the highlights of a famous (or not-so-famous) place.

    Tuesday, December 20, 2022

    Slideator - Add Your Voice to Almost Any Type of Slideshow

    Slideator is a free tool that you can use to add voice-over and webcam recordings to your slides. Slideator works with just about any type of slideshow that you own. You can even use it with a set of slides that you have in PDF. In addition to adding your voice-over and webcam recording to your slides, Slideator lets you draw, type, and highlight on your slides.

    To use Slideator simply upload your slides in whatever format they are currently in. Then you can record a voice-over with or without your webcam turned on. When you have finished recording on Slideator you can share it publicly or keep it unlisted and only share it with a small audience. Watch the short video that I have embedded below to see how Slideator works. 



    Applications for Education
    Slideator provides an easy way to turn an existing set of your slides into a short video lesson to share with your students. You can do similar things with some of the tools built into PowerPoint, Keynote, and Canva. The nice thing about Slideator is that it provides the recording and hosting tools in one place so that you don't have to record and then upload the video to another site.

    Friday, December 16, 2022

    Create Animations from Audio in Adobe Express

    I like to end the week with something fun. If you do too, head over to Animate from Audio hosted by Adobe Express. Animate from Audio is a fun little tool that matches your spoken words to an animated character of your choosing. The finished product is a fun little video that you can download as an MP4 and or share on your favorite websites. 

    To create a video with Animate from Audio simply head to the site then select the character that you want to animate. Then record your spoken audio. After recording your audio Adobe Express then matches your audio to movements of your chosen character. The more inflection you use in your spoken audio, the more movement you'll see in the character. Watch the video that is embedded below to see how Animate from Audio works. 

    Video - Turn Your Audio Into Animation With Adobe Express



    Applications for Education
    In the video above I hinted at the idea of creating a few talking animations with Animate from Audio and then stringing them together in another video editor. By doing that students could create short videos to bring to life short stories they written. Making animations like that is also one of the many things that I teach in my online course, Animated Explanations.

    Sunday, November 6, 2022

    5 Things You Can Make With Microsoft Flip Besides Selfie Videos

    Microsoft Flip (formerly known as Flipgrid) is a great tool for getting to know your students through the use of short selfie-style videos. I've also used it for asynchronous classroom discussions. You might have done the same with your students then gotten to the point of wondering, "okay, what's next?" If that's where you are with Microsoft Flip, I have some suggestions for you in this short video

    In 5 Things You Can Make With Microsoft Flip Besides Selfie Videos I demonstrate the following things that you might to try or have your students try to do:

    •  Audio-only recordings.
    • Audio + whiteboard recordings.
    • Green screen videos
    • Green screen + annotation
    • Split whiteboard with drawings, text, and images. 

    Monday, October 24, 2022

    My Top Five Tips for Creating Instructional Videos

    Over the years I’ve made more than 1,000 videos for my YouTube channel and nearly as many for students in my classrooms. Here are five tips that I’ve figured out along the way.

    Keep it short and sweet.
    Two five minute videos are better than one ten minute video. Even though it’s the same amount of time, watching two five minute videos seems like less of a chore to students than sitting through one ten minute video. Additionally, by breaking it up into smaller chunks you give your students the chance to think about what they’ve watched or complete a short practice activity before watching the next video lesson.

    Include Highlights, Drawings, or Annotations.
    Watch any of my screencast videos and you’ll notice that I have my mouse pointer highlighted to make it easier for viewers to see where I’m clicking. When I’m creating video lessons for computer science students I’ll also zoom in and highlight or circle the line of code that I’m editing.

    Occasionally, I like to use text annotations to remind viewers of what they’re looking at. For example, when making a video about Google Classroom I’ll overlay an annotation that reads “teacher view” or “student view.” Last week I used annotations to correct something that I misstated at the end of this video about an augmented reality geography game

    When I taught U.S. History I would use drawing tools to circle or draw arrows pointing to places on a map in my video lessons.

    Turn on, elevate, and look at your webcam.
    Even if it’s subconsciously, students want to see your face and know that you’re there. Turning on your camera, even when making a screencast video, can improve the chances that your students will watch your video and pay attention to it. Put your camera at eye level or slightly higher. Doing this makes it easier to make eye contact with your camera which makes for a far better viewing experience than looking up your nose. A better viewing experience is going to increase the odds of students watching your video all the way through to the end.

    Create a Call to Action
    This seems simple but a lot of people overlook it. Ask students to do something either during the video or immediately after viewing your video. Your call to action could be in the form of a few multiple choice questions that are built into the video. Another call to action could be a prompt for students to try the problem solving method you explained in your video. The point is, you don’t want students to be passive viewers of your video lesson.

    Make it accessible.
    Thanks to the influence of my friend Dr. Beth Holland, in the last few years I’ve been more conscious of trying to make instructional materials as accessible as possible to all students. This means making sure materials are accessible on a variety of devices and it means making sure that my videos are captioned.

    Fortunately, when you distribute a video lesson via YouTube captioning and resizing are done for you. If you use something other than YouTube, you can still have automatic captioning done for you in Chrome. Here’s a demo of how I created captions for a video that wasn’t hosted on YouTube.


    Thursday, October 6, 2022

    Three Student Video Contests

    Video creation contests can be a fun way to get students thinking about academic topics and then producing videos to demonstrate their understanding of those topics. This fall I've written blog posts featuring three different video contests for students. A summary of all three is included below. 

    Economic Education Video Contest

    The Council for Economics Education is hosting a student video contest to promote student awareness of how economics is a part of their daily lives. 

    The contest is open to students and teachers in the United States in Kindergarten through twelfth grade. To participate students and teachers should create short videos (under 60 seconds) that answer the question, "how is economics part of my everyday life?" There are three divisions in the contest. Those are K-4, 5-8, and 9-12. The teachers and students producing winning videos will receive prizes in the form of American Express gift cards. 

    Other than the time limit it appears that the videos can be made in any style as long as they address the question of "how is economics part of my everyday life?" Multiple entries can be made by teachers on behalf of their students. The complete contest rules can be read here (link opens a PDF). The submission deadline is October 19th. 

    Creative Storm 2022

    Creative Storm 2022 is the title of the latest Next Vista for Learning video contest. Like previous Next Vista contests, this one is open to students and teachers. There is a category for student-produced videos, a category for teacher-produced videos, and a category for videos created through the collaborative efforts of teachers and students. Regardless of the category, all videos must teach a lesson in 90 seconds or less. The lesson can be about almost any concept a person would learn about in elementary, middle, or high school.

    Entries into Next Vista's Creative Storm video contest must be received by December 16th. There is a small bonus for those who submit their entries by November 18th. Contest winners receive Amazon gift cards and the pride of showcasing their videos for a larger audience. Complete contest rules and instructions can be read here

    C-SPAN StudentCam

    Every year C-SPAN hosts the StudentCam video contest for middle school and high school students in the United States. This year's version of the contest was announced yesterday. The theme of this year's contest is "If you were a newly elected member of Congress, which issue would be your first priority and why?"

    The StudentCam contest is open to students in sixth through twelfth grade. There is a category for middle school (grades 6-8) and high school (grades 9-12). Students can submit individual work or work in teams of up to three members. All videos must be between five and six minutes in length. The incorporation of C-SPAN footage into the videos is required. 

    The StudentCam contest is open to students in the United States. The contest deadline is January 20, 2023. All videos must include some C-SPAN footage. This year more than $100,000 in prizes will be awarded. Complete contest rules can be found here and the prize list can be found here. There are prizes for students as well as for teachers. 

    Tools for Creating Videos

    If you're looking for ideas for how you and your students can produce videos for these contests, take a look at my recently updated big list of tools for classroom video projects

    Wednesday, October 5, 2022

    How to Create Green Screen Videos in Canva

    A couple of weeks ago Canva held an event to announce a bunch features that were going to be added over the coming months. One of those features is now available in the form of a background remover for video clips. Just like you can use Canva to remove image backgrounds you can now use Canva to remove the background from your video clips. 

    By using Canva's background remover and video editor you can now create green screen videos even if you don't have an actual green screen to record in front of. Now you can simply record a video clip, upload it to your Canva account, and then use the built-in editor to remove the video's background. Once you've replaced your video's background you can replace it with any stock image available in Canva or any image that you own and upload to your Canva account. 

    Watch my short that is embedded below to learn how to create a green screen video in Canva





    You can find even more Canva tutorials in my playlist of more than 45 Canva tutorials.

    Applications for Education
    As someone who spent years teaching world geography classes, one of my favorite uses of green screens is to have students create "on location" video reports about places they've researched. Canva's new video editing options can make that process easier than ever before. 

    Tuesday, October 4, 2022

    Updated - Screencasting on Chromebooks - Built-in Tool vs. Third-party Tools

    Back in June Google introduced a new screencasting tool for Chromebooks. Back then I wrote a comparison of the Chrome OS screencast tool and some others that are available to use on Chromebooks. Since then Screencastify has changed their free plan and Flipgrid has been renamed as Microsoft Flip. So I think it's time that I publish an updated overview of the screencasting tools available for use on Chromebooks. 

    Chrome OS Built-in Recorder
    The obvious benefit of using the built-in recorder is that you don't have install any third-party extensions. Additionally, your recordings automatically save to your Google Drive. And because the video is saved in your Google account, it is incredibly easy to share your videos with your students. The best aspect of the built-in Chrome OS screencasting tool is that your video is automatically transcribed for you and your students can have that transcript translated into the language of their choice. 

    The shortcomings of the Chrome OS screencast recorder are the limited drawing tools and limited editing tools. It will probably get better in time, but right now it doesn't have nearly as many drawing and editing options as other screencasting tools like Screencastify and Loom. 


    Screencastify
    Screencastify was one of the first screencasting tools developed specifically for Chromebooks (it should be noted that it can work on any computer running the Chrome web browser). Over the years it has improved in leaps and bounds. Today, Screencastify offers more than just a tool for recording a video of your screen. It offers a complete video editing platform. 

    With Screencastify you can record your screen, use a wide variety of drawing and zoom tools, and edit your recordings in your web browser. Recordings can be automatically saved to your Google Drive account, downloaded as MP4 files, and shared to other services including Google Classroom, YouTube, and EDpuzzle. 

    The editing tools in Screencastify include cropping, splitting, and merging clips. It also provides tools for blurring faces and objects in your videos. Finally, you can use Screencastify to build must-answer questions into your videos before you share them with your students. 

    It should be noted that on October 3, 2022 Screencastify introduced some severe limitations to the features mentioned above for those who are using Screencastify's free plan. Those limitations include a limit of having only ten videos in your account, a limit of only 30 minutes of export time (the total amount of video that you download from your account), and videos can't be exported as MP4 files. Those limitations make Screencastify's free plan not nearly as a good an option as the Chrome OS screen recorder or Loom's free plan for educators. 

    Loom
    Loom is a popular screencasting tool partly because they offer a generous list of free features for teachers and because those features work really well. Perhaps my favorite of those features is the ability to record a screencast directly from your Gmail inbox or from anywhere else in your Chrome browser. Loom also offers automatic transcript generation, viewing insights (get notifications when people watch your videos), and a tool for suppressing background noise in your recordings

    Loom lets you download your recordings and MP4 files and share your videos directly to variety of places including YouTube. 

    Here's a demo of how I used Loom and Google Jamboard to make whiteboard videos. 

    Microsoft Flip
    Although it's known for it, Microsoft Flip does offer a convenient screencast recording tool. It doesn't include a capability to draw on the screen while recording, but it is easy to use and easy to share your recordings with your students. You can also combine a screencast with a simple webcam video or whiteboard video that you make in Flip. Here's a demonstration of how to make a whiteboard video in Microsoft Flip. If you want to know more about Flip's other uses, take a look at this playlist of videos

    Creative Storm - A Student Video Contest

    Creative Storm 2022 is the title of the latest Next Vista for Learning video contest. Like previous Next Vista contests, this one is open to students and teachers. There is a category for student-produced videos, a category for teacher-produced videos, and a category for videos created through the collaborative efforts of teachers and students. Regardless of the category, all videos must teach a lesson in 90 seconds or less. The lesson can be about almost any concept a person would learn about in elementary, middle, or high school.

    Entries into Next Vista's Creative Storm video contest must be received by December 16th. There is a small bonus for those who submit their entries by November 18th. Contest winners receive Amazon gift cards and the pride of showcasing their videos for a larger audience. Complete contest rules and instructions can be read here

    Take a look at this video made by a Kindergarten class or any of the previous contest's finalists here for some inspiration.

    And for some ideas and instruction on making videos take a look at Creating Animated Explanations

    Saturday, October 1, 2022

    An October Video Project - Halloween Safety

    Halloween is thirty days away. My kids have been planning their costumes since last November or so it seems because they're very excited about it. Last fall I shared a list of Halloween-themed activities and resources. In that list I included playing a Halloween safety review game from Kahoot. Keeping with the idea of Halloween safety, consider having students create a short video about trick o' treat safety. 

    There are a lot of tools and ways that student could create a short video about trick o' treating safety. They could make a quick one-take video in Microsoft Flip in which they share a Halloween safety tip. Another option is to use Adobe Express to make a little audio slideshow about Halloween safety. And my favorite option would be to use Canva's video editor to make a little animated video about Halloween safety. 

    A quick search for "Halloween" in Canva will provide you with templates for making Halloween-themed videos and lots of Halloween-themed animated GIFs and drawings. Here's a demonstration of how to create an animated video by using Canva's video editor. 



    Applications for Education
    Making Halloween safety videos could be a good way for elementary school students to show what they know about being safe on this fun day. Creating Halloween safety videos could also be a good exercise for middle school and high school students to do to practice video editing skills while creating PSA-style videos for younger kids. 

    Monday, September 26, 2022

    My Updated Big List of Tools for a Variety of Classroom Video Projects

    Around this time last fall I published a big list of my go-to tools for creating videos with students. Since then some of the tools in the list were rebranded and or had some notable updates. This is my updated list of recommended video creation tools for classroom projects. 

    By the way, I created the list because other than questions about Google Workspace tools, I get asked more questions about making videos than any other three topics combined. 

    Video Reflections/ One-take Videos
    These are videos that require minimal, if any, editing before publication. In this type of video creation activity teachers will pose a prompt to their students and their students will response with a short video statement. 

    Microsoft Flip (formerly known as Flipgrid) is the best known of all platforms designed for students to record video responses to a teacher's prompt. Teachers can create online classrooms in which their students post short video responses. Teachers can moderate submissions before the rest of the class can see the videos. And teachers can use Microsoft Flip to give feedback directly to their students. There are many other features of Microsoft Flip that are worth noting and are included below in the section about whiteboard videos. Watch this video to learn the basics of Microsoft Flip. 



    Padlet is a tool that I've used for more than a decade for a wide variety of purposes including collecting short videos from students. Students can use the recording feature that is built into Padlet to record a short video and share it with the class. Here's a short overview of how to record videos in Padlet. 



    Audio Slideshow Videos

    Other than one-take videos, the audio slideshow style of video is probably the easiest of all video formats to create. It's also one of the most misunderstood when it comes to using it in classroom. For an audio slideshow project to be effective students first need to plan the sequence, find the best visuals, apply appropriate text (but not too much), and choose an appropriate soundtrack. If you want to take it a step further, you'll want students to create a script to narrate their videos. Here's an overview of attributes to look for when students create audio slideshow videos. 

    Here are my top three choices for students to use to make audio slideshow videos. 

    Adobe Express
    Almost since its initial launch six years ago, Adobe Express (formerly known as Adobe Spark) has been my go-to recommendation for this style of video project. Adobe Express makes it easy for students to create succinct audio slideshow videos. Adobe Express limits the amount of narration that students can record on each slide within their videos. Adobe Express also includes a library of background music that students can have inserted into their videos. Finally, students can upload short audio clips to include in their audio slideshow video projects. In this short video I demonstrate how to create a video with Adobe Express.



    Canva
    Canva now offers two ways for students to create audio slideshow videos. The first way is to simply put together a series of slides and then select a soundtrack to play in the background. That process is demonstrated here. The other method is to use Canva's full video editor to add narration an custom timings to an audio slideshow video. That process is demonstrated in this video





    Microsoft Photos
    Microsoft Photos includes a video creation tool for making short audio slideshow-style videos. You'll find this by just opening the native photos app in Windows 10. Within the editor there are tools for adding animated effects to still images, insert your existing video clips into a video project, and tools for adding audio to your video. There's also a great option to search for Creative Commons licensed images and insert them directly into your video project. The best part of that feature is that attribution information is automatically added onto the images you choose through the built-in search tool. In the following video I provide a demonstration of how to create a video with Microsoft Photos.



    Google Photos
    In Google Photos there is a section called "utilities." It is in the utilities section that you'll find the video creation tool. To use it all you need to do is select up to 50 pictures and or videos that you have stored in your Google Photos account. Google Photos will then automatically select display length for each image or video and automatically add background music to your video. If you don't like what was automatically selected for your video, you can manually adjust display length and choose different background music.

    Watch this short video to learn how to make an audio slideshow video with Google Photos. 



    Green Screen Videos

    Making a green screen video can be a lot of fun for students and also a lot of fun for peers, parents, and teachers to watch. More than a decade after it was published I still occasionally refer to this video from Greg Kulowiec's middle school class as an example of a fun green screen project. Making a green screen video can seem intimidating at first, but once you've tried it a time or two you'll find that it's not as complicated as it might seem. Today there are lots of tools for making green screen videos. Here are the three I typically recommend and introduce to teachers. 

    Make a Green Screen Video in iMovie
    If you have access to a Mac or an iPad, this is the tool to use. It's free (provided you already have a modern Mac or iPad) and has just enough features to make a nice green screen video, but not so many features that it takes a long time to learn how to use it. Watch this video to learn how to make a green screen video in iMovie on a Mac. Watch this one to learn how to make a green screen video on an iPad.

    WeVideo
    For Chromebook users and Windows users, WeVideo is my go-to recommendation. Here's a demonstration of how it works.



    Zoom + Adobe Spark
    If you don't have a physical green screen to record in front of, you could use Zoom's built-in virtual green screen capability then import that video into Adobe Spark for final editing. Watch this video to learn how that is done.

    Animated Videos

    Making animations is a great way for students to bring their written stories to life on screen. Depending upon the story, the animation could be as short frame or two that plays for twenty seconds or it could be a five minute story.  

    ChatterPix Kids
    ChatterPix Kids is one of my favorite digital storytelling apps for elementary school students. ChatterPix Kids is a free app that students can use to create talking pictures. To use the app students simply open it on their iPads or Android devices and then take a picture. Once they've taken a picture students draw a mouth on their pictures. With the mouth in place students then record themselves talking for up to thirty seconds. The recording is then added to the picture and saved as a video on the students' iPads or Android devices. Watch my tutorial videos below to learn how to use ChatterPix Kids on Android devices and on iPads.

    How to Make Talking Pictures With ChatterPix Kids (Android Version)



    How to Make Talking Pictures With ChatterPix Kids (iPad Version)


    Slides + Screencasting
    Google Slides, like PowerPoint and Keynote, provide users with lots of ways to animate elements within their slides. Use those animation tools to make clipart and simple drawings move on the screen. Then capture those movements with a screencasting tool like Screencastify or Screencast-o-matic. Of course, you'll want to include a voiceover while recording. This method can be used to create animated videos like those made popular by Common Craft. You can read about and then watch this whole process in this Practical Ed Tech article.

    Canva
    Canva has lots of animation options that you can add to almost any graphic that you create in it. You can animate text, make objects spin and move, and even add audio to play in the background when you make a graphic in Canva. Your finished designs can be downloaded as animated GIFs and as MP4 files. Canva's video editor can be used to create animated videos. That's a process that I demonstrate in this video

    Whiteboard Videos

    From creating a math lesson to explaining a workflow there are lots of purposes for creating whiteboard-style instructional videos. Last year I had students make simple whiteboard videos to explain network and wiring diagrams. Here's a handful of tools for making whiteboard instructional videos. 

    In June Google added a built-in screencasting tool to the Chrome OS. If you're Chromebook is updated to the latest version of Chrome OS, you have access to this tool. With it you can you can record all of your screen or part of your screen. If you like to include your webcam in screencasts, you can do that with the built-in recorder in the latest version of Chrome OS. And you can draw on your screen while recording. When you create a screencast using the built-in recorder on your Chromebook the recording is automatically saved to your Google Drive account. Once the recording is saved you can share it much like you would share any other file in your Google Drive account. 

    Watch my video that is embedded below to learn how you can record screencasts on your Chromebook without using any third-party extensions. 

    Try using Screencastify to record over the free drawing space provided by Google's online version of Jamboard. One of the benefits of using Jamboard for this kind of video is that when you are done you can share the Jamboard images with your students. You could even share the Jamboard via Google Classroom so that students have a copy of the process that you demonstrated while making your video.




    Loom is also an excellent and popular choice for making screencast videos right from your web browser. In the following video I demonstrate how I paired Loom and Google's Jamboard to make a whiteboard-style instructional video. One of the tips that I shared in the video is to use the sharing option in Jamboard to give your students a copy of the drawings or sketches that you use in your instructional video.



    Microsoft Flip offers an integrated whiteboard function. You can use this feature to create whiteboard videos for your students to watch in Microsoft Flip. You can also have your students use the whiteboard tools to reply to a prompt that you have given to them. Watch this video to learn how to make a whiteboard video with Microsoft Flip.



    Wakelet has integrated the Microsoft Flip camera into their service so that you can create whiteboard-style instructional videos directly within your Wakelet collections. Watch my video below to see how that process works.



    Seesaw is my go-to tool for making digital portfolios. I like it because it's a versatile platform that can be used for more than just portfolio creation. You can use it as a blog, use it to share announcements with parents, use it to distribute assignments, and you can use it to create whiteboard videos. In fact, there are a couple of ways that you and your students can create whiteboard videos in Seesaw. Both of those methods are outlined in my new video that is embedded below.

    Friday, August 5, 2022

    Five Interesting Ways to Use Screencastify in Your Classroom

    A couple of days ago I wrote a short post about the changes to Screencastify's free plan. At the end of that post I included some ideas for using Screencastify in your classroom. If you missed that short list, here are the ideas in more detail. 

    Add Interactive Questions Into Your Videos
    Adding interactive questions into your instructional videos is a great way to make sure that students actually watch your lesson all the way through. It's also a good way to determine if you need to re-teach something or alter your explanation of a concept. You can do that by looking to see if there is a pattern to the answers your students choose while watching your video. Here's a demo of how to use Screencastify to add questions into your videos.
     


    Blur Faces and Objects in Your Videos
    The option to blur things in your videos is a great way to protect your and your students' privacy when publishing a video. Besides blurring faces you may also want to blur names or email addresses if they appear in a screencast video. Watch this video to learn more.



    Comment on Google Docs
    The process of using Screencastify and Google Keep to create a video comment bank for Google Docs is fairly straight-forward. First, record your short video comments or short lesson with Screencastify. Second, get the "share" link from Screencastify. Third, create a note in Google Keep that contains the link to the video (I recommend giving the notes easy-to-remember names and labels). Finally, whenever you need the video link just open Google Keep in the sidebar of the Google Doc you're viewing and copy the video link from the Google Keep into your comment. Watch this video for a demonstration of the whole process.



    Make a Common Craft-style Video
    A little more than decade ago Common Craft created a whole new style of explantory video. You and your students can make your own videos in that simple style by using a screencasting tool like Screencastify and Google Slides. Watch this video to see how that's done.



    Record a Narrated Google Earth Tour in Your Web Browser
    The web version of Google Earth doesn't have the same tour recording tools that are available in Google Earth Pro. The solution to that problem is to use a tool like Screencastify to record your tour. Watch this video to see how you can do that.

    Wednesday, August 3, 2022

    Significant Changes to Screencastify's Free Plan

    Screencastify is a versatile screencast recording tool that I've used over the years to create many kinds of instructional videos including Common Craft-style videos and virtual tours. As I write this blog post, I still prefer Screencastify to the new built-in recording option in Chromebooks. That said, it should be noted that Screencastify has just introduced some significant changes to their free plan. 

    Here's What's Changing in Screencastify

    The new free version of Screencastify increases the recording time for your videos from five minutes to thirty minutes. That's a huge change! The trade-off is that you now can only store ten videos in your free Screencastify account. That's also a huge change! The previous free version allowed unlimited videos as long as they were under the five minute limit. You can still export all of your videos as MP4 files. So if you find that you bump up against the ten video limit, you can export one or delete one to get back under that limit. 

    Ways to Use Screencastify in Your Classroom

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