Sunday, July 7, 2013

Instructional Tools: Podcasts and Screencasts

     Well, I successfully finished both a podcast and a screencast in the past few days.  The podcast, which I mentioned in my previous blog entry, was created to assist students with reviewing content and completing a homework assignment; I think this is a practical use of podcasts in education and can be very helpful for students.  Just as our textbook suggest, I like to use Audacity to create my podcasts.  For the screencast, I created a tutorial for how to use BiteSlide to complete an assignment that I created for a graduate class.  I hadn't made a screencast in quite some time, so I was a little rusty with Camtasia Studio.  However, Camtasia Studio was just as great as I remembered it being!  I was able to whip out the screencast tutorial (with editing) in a reasonable amount of time.

     All in all, I think both podcasts and screencasts can be very helpful.  I think screencasts are more helpful for creating computer tutorials because it is usually easier to explain and demonstrate how to use programs by actually showing people (as opposed to audio-only instructional podcasts).  On the other hand, podcasts are more helpful for recording and sharing personal thoughts, informational reviews, interviews, and other material that only requires only audio transmission to be helpful.   

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