Thing #21

Screencasting

I decided to alter the directions for this assignment slightly so that I can actually use my screencast immediately (I didn't do something I found on Thinkfinity, but it is an interactive site). I have Jury Duty starting on January 3, so this might be something that I need to use right away. The topic that we will be studying is cell division (mitosis). One of the activities that I've had students do is to look at an onion root tip under the microscope and identify the stages of the cell cycle/mitosis each of the cells is in. Students do alright with this, but not all students always understand what they are looking at. So, in addition to actually manipulating the microscope to look at cells, I found an interactive web site that shows images of cells in various stages of the cell cycle/mitosis, asks students to pick which stage the cell is in, and then provides feedback for students on whether or not their choice was correct. So, since I might be absent when we would normally review the activity, I decided to make a screen cast that would cover the same things that I would when reviewing the activity.

Here is the link to my screencast: Mitosis Activity Instructions Screencast

Overall, I enjoyed making the screencast. I never like to hear my voice recorded, and it makes me nervous. But, I'm sure that I would grow more comfortable with it over time. And I got good feedback (mostly because my colleague was so impressed with the whole concept of screencasting). One bonus of making this is that I think that I will make a few extra screen shots of activities that students will be completing the first week back from break in case I actually have to be gone for several days for jury duty.