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An Easy and Fun Way to Create Educational Content
by Jim Hollis

Recently, I was invited to a Middle School career fair to demonstrate how technology could be used in the education field. I decided to demonstrate how technology can be used to capture and share information over the Internet quickly and easily. My dilemma was that I had to capture the interest of 11 - 13 year old kids in a matter of a few minutes. Moreover, I had to demonstrate authentic uses of technology in the classroom. Could this be done? Could I really pull it off? Luckily, the available technology that allows teachers to capture and share information over the Internet is extremely interesting...even to a 12 year old on the last day before Spring Break.

When the students came around to my booth, the first thing they saw was a SMART Board interactive whiteboard. I used the SMART Board to grab their attention as I deftly used it to show a short video of "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" with a dancing hippo. I then let students come up and and control the video using their finger, they were soon playing around, laughing hysterically, and engaging with the material.  I now had their attention and I had students begging to come up and use the SMART Board. The "hook" was set!

Next, I switched over to one of my favorite websites called Sketchcast. This site allows you to create videos of what you say and write. This is a perfect tool for teachers since we tend to say and write about a lot of things. Let's take a look at two videos that will help demonstrate how Sketchcast can be used by teachers.

The first video shows a Sketchcast of how to multiply using the distributive method of multiplication. The second video shows me actually creating the video.

Sketchcast: Multiplying Using the Distributive Method

Here's the video of me actually using Sketchcast to create the video you see above:

As you can see from the second video, I used a SMART Board interactive whiteboard to help me create my Sketchcast. While an interactive whiteboard makes it very easy to use the Sketchcast website, it is not a requirement. You don't actually need any special tools, it's just a lot easier to write with your finger or a pen than it is to use a mouse in this type of application. (Another great tool to help you write numbers would be a tablet PC.)

During the career fair, I used Sketchcasts to show tricks on how to multiply big numbers by 11. The kids were actually paying attention and were soon asking permission to use the SMART Board to try it out for themselves!!!

While I had a lot of fun at the career fair, it dawned on me that I was demonstrating to the wrong audience. I really should have been showing this to a group of teachers instead of a group of students!

If you've never used technology to capture what you say and write, I certainly hope that you will play around with the Sketchcast website and see how easy it is to create learning videos. My next post will walk you through the process of getting this information on the Internet in under two minutes!

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