Screencasting: reusing existing content

One of the common reasons for not developing more materials for our students is lack of time. In a previous post, I described the use of screencasts in teaching. These can be quite time-consuming to make. Very often, a video or some part of a video covering a topic we wish to cover is already available on YouTube, Vimeo, or TeacherTube, which begs the question: what’s the point in re-inventing the wheel?

The main reason I make my own videos is that students seem to like the fact that the material is addressing them. But some new technologies are coming on stream that allow for customisation of existing videos, either by adding in quizzes or by clipping parts of videos, and even adding in our own narration for our students.

Enter web applications: eduCanon and EDpuzzle. Both of these allow users recycle existing videos, but customise them to their own needs by adding in their own questions, extra or less material, or even voice over with their own voice.

eduCanon (www.educanon.com) is a beautifully simple web app that allows teachers to add in questions at any point during a video. The process is easy—enter in the weblink of the video you wish to use. Then you can crop it or add in questions at any point in the video - the screenshot above shows a work in progress. Question types can be MCQ or free response, or a feedback prompt. You can decide whether to assign it to a class of students (they will need log-in data if you wish to record their responses) or just make it freely available.

EDpuzzle (www.edpuzzle.com) is a similar tool that allows you to crop longer videos and add in questions. EDpuzzle also allows you to include your own narration, which may be a useful feature for specific instances (e.g. language, or local conditions).

I think these web applications offer huge scope to time-pressed teachers who may see a video that is almost what they need, but lacks either interactivity or some local context. I’d be interested to hear from those who have tried it out in their class (the class logging looks very useful) or who see the potential and wish to give it a go.