I have always been a huge fan of using technology and digital tools to capture student thinking and help students communicate their great ideas. I previously wrote a post titled, Do Screencasts Have a Place in the Math Classroom? where I pointed out that many teachers seem to like the idea of screencasting but I haven’t really seen it fully implemented in classroom to the extent where students create their own screencasts. I also asked the question Why? Why isn’t screencasting being implemented in the math classroom? Is it too difficult? Too time-consuming? Well today I was able to have some of my questions answered when I worked with a grade 5 teacher that was able to able easily create screencasts with her students using tablet technology.
The students were given a multiplication problem to solve collaboratively in groups and once they solved the problem in more than one way, they were asked to create a screencast of their solution using the Screenchomp app on an iPad.
Here are some of the screencasts that were produced from that lesson:
http://www.screenchomp.com/t/ZgMo18itF
http://www.screenchomp.com/t/K4lEN7EP6cA
After my conversation with the teacher and viewing the student created screencasts, I thought about the implementation issue that I previously raised and realized the benefits of the all-in-one capability and the immediacy that tablets bring to the table.
Creating a screencast that can be shared on-line can be a multi-step process that would turn many teachers away considering the business of day to day classroom learning. Just the step of taking pictures with a digital camera and uploading them to a computer to create screencasts can be annoying. However, the iPad allows students to quickly take pictures of their work with the camera app, easily import the picture into the Screenchomp app, record their explanation and share in a matter of minutes. Rather interrupting their thinking and learning process by going over to the classroom computer or waiting to go to the computer lab to create a screencast, the iPad allows the creation of the screencast to become naturally integrated into the learning process because everything the students need is right at their fingertips on one device.
If you have similar experiences with the integration of table technology in your classroom, I would love to hear about it.
Roflections 
You have me thinking about my grade 3s. I might try the app Show Me or Educreations and have students solve their problems within the app. Isn’t it more about the process than the final answer? I think these apps might capture the discussion and dialogue while they are working together. This could be amazing data to collect and share during a math congress.
Thanks for pushing my thinking.
Angie
@techieang
The possibilities are endless with screencasting and capturing the process of students solving the problem would be great data for both assessment ‘for’ and ‘as’ learning. I find that using the app to create screencasts to explain their strategies and solution is great improving math communication. Paul Lockhart refers to math as the art of explanation and screencasting gives students an opportunity improve their math communication because they can replay and listen to their explanations and refine them. I think this would enhance a math congress because richer in-depth explanations lead to richer questions and discussion. One thing that I didn’t expect when students were creating screencasts was the co-planning, deep thinking and communication that occurred between them before they pressed the record button.
Thanks for commenting. I would love to hear about your math congress using screencasts of the students solving math problems. I’ll try doing the same and maybe we can share notes!
This is great. Thanks for the inspiration.
Agreed! We love doing this at our school with our iPads. See student work:
http://teachinglikeits2999.blogspot.com/
http://mslaidler.blogspot.com/
Thanks for Sharing your student screencasts. It was great to see and hear their math thinking. Have you tried using the Educreations app? I learned about it from @techieang and I find that his some additional features that Showme and Screenchomp lack.
Yes! We uploaded this app recently and are excited by the image manipulation and slide features!
Are there any screencasting apps for the iPad that allow the students to surf the internet and record what they are doing? Even better would be the ability to screencast what they are doing on the iPad with apps and things. I like Educreations, I have used ShowMe, right now I prefer ExplainEverything… however what I really want is something like Screenr or Jing for the iPad. Anyone have any thoughts or ideas?
I’ve wondered about the same kind of app as well but I haven’t seen any screencasting app like what you described. Hopefully somebody’s working on it. Sometimes I wish I was an app developer! Thanks for sharing the ExplainEverything app. I checked it out and it seems like the Cadillac of screencasting apps.
I’m missing a lot, gotta revisit app store…