Rarely in my Webwatcher articles have I suggested spending money on software. With so many good free tools on the market (eg Blogger, Edmodo and Jing), there is little need to spend money. However, the tool I am going to suggest in this article is worth the money and can open up a whole range of possibilities to you.
SnagIt has been around for years. It is essentially a screen-capture device that allows you to capture anything on your screen as an image. However, it does much more than that. For example it can capture everything on a whole page, even the part you have to scroll to see. In other words, you can make an image of a whole web page, even though part of that web page may not be visible on the screen when you capture it. The image-capture facility integrates very well with Word and PowerPoint, so screen captures can be immediately brought into documents with literally just a click of a button. You will see the buttons at the top of the screen. This facility allows teachers to make worksheets and handouts to a really professional standard.
The video capture in SnagIt is superb. It allows a teacher to mark any area of the screen, turn on the video capture (often called screencasting) and then create a video. So, for example, if you wanted to highlight an interesting website that your students could use to study on their own, you could open up the site, turn on the screen capture and then record yourself showing the students the site, opening up different pages and commenting on them. All of this could then be saved as a video and distributed to the students.
SnagIt offers all types of distribution. Your video can be saved onto your computer so that you have a hard copy of it, or it can be uploaded directly onto YouTube. The YouTube integration is superb. If you have a Google account, you will automatically have a YouTube account. You just add in your name and password and the videos are automatically uploaded. You can then share the link with your students, emailing it or adding it into Moodle or Edmodo or any central location where the students can access it.
YouTube videos can also be embedded, so you can take the YouTube video from your channel (the homepage of your account) and embed it into a blog, a wiki, Moodle, etc. The big advantage in using the YouTube integration is that you have plenty of space, so you can add lots of videos. If your students have SnagIt on at least some of their computers, they too can make screencasts and image captures, and these could all be saved on the same YouTube channel.
The flipped classroom
The world of education took a long time to see the merits of screencasting. A very good example of its use is in the flipped classroom. Many teachers are now recording presentations and putting them online – so that their students can access the learning input at home – and then making greater use of lesson time for focus on the coursework and other tasks. SnagIt is ideal for this as the idea is that these presentations are short, directly to the point and easily accessible. It would be simple for a teacher to screencast a whole series of presentations, share them on YouTube and then use them in a flipped classroom scenario where the students can access the learning material at home.
I have done a large number of experiments with screencasting. As a teacher, I have used it to provide feedback for my students by opening their work on my screen and then recording myself correcting their work before sending them the video. I have also used it to explain the marking scheme of the PET and FCE exams, especially for the oral component. I simply open up the marking scheme onto my screen, turn on the screen capture tool and then talk through the various stages of the oral exam, explaining what the examiners are looking for. I can then send the resulting video to my students. They can play it and refer to it as much as they want.
Many of you will know Jing. Jing is free and a great way to get into screencasting, but it does not allow you to download the videos in a format that most students will be able to view. So you are always limited to putting the videos on YouTube. It does not have the simple integration of SnagIt, either, or the ability to edit and cut parts from the video. I really think the £20 cost of SnagIt (for the ‘educational version’) is something worth considering. Of course, better still, suggest it to your director of studies or the owner of your institution. I think it is a superb tool that can provide teachers with a huge number of options. If you can get copies for your students by getting a multiuser licence, then that would be even better. You can also try it out by downloading it for free for 15 days.
Help with using SnagIt can be found at: www.techsmith.com/tutorial-snagit-current.html
You can get the educational version free 15-day download at: www.techsmith.com/snagit.html
Russell Stannard is the founder of www.teachertrainingvideos.com, which won a British Council ELTons award for technology. He is a freelance teacher and writer and also a NILE Associate Trainer.
Keep sending your favourite sites to Russell: russellstannard@btinternet.com