Let's Podcast!

A relatively new educational tool is use of Podcasting in education. Podcasting has many promising features. Students can record voice, video, or a combination of the two. Richardson (2010) relates that "if you can podcast, you can screencast" (p. 124). The only software I have used for screencasting is Camtasia. It required a HUGE learning curve on my part. As a novice software user, Camtasia was confusing and difficult to format. I used it to develop an "orientation" to an online class I was teaching. The video was intended to present the online classroom and tools to the students. Most of the students enrolled to take the course provided feedback that they had not taken an online course prior to this. General information such as logging onto class, finding important information such as the couse syllabus and class plan, instruction on how to attach assignments to the assignment's link, and how the discussion threading worked was part of the video. I uploaded it to screencast.com as prompted. Much to my dismay the picture was very small. It took me quite awhile to figure out how to make the video "whole-screen." Students enrolled in the course experienced similar problems. Teaching online education is not "easy" as some faculty perceive it to be. It is my experience that the planning stage is much more timely. My concerns and motivation to teach well online prompted me to enter Kent State University's online teaching certificate course.

Reference

Richardson, W. (2010). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms. (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.