Online Etiquette Video (Loom Review)

This summer I was testing out the full version of Loom and made a video that tested out their limited online drawing tools and capability to create a link inside of a presentation.

The general idea is that I could share the video with students, prior to our first online meeting, and post to my Google Classroom for reference.

I definitely liked that you could embed the link to the presentation on the video, using their "Call to Action" button, but felt like, unless you explicitly told viewers to hover over the video (like I did at the end of the video above), viewers could easily miss that feature.

I also found the online drawing tool to have a delay. That could have been an internet buffering issue on my end so I would need to retest that.

Please note the drawing tools option is only available on the desktop app version - not the Chrome extension. The biggest problem with the desktop app versus the chrome extension is that the desktop app requires a download...and our teachers are prohibited from downloading anything to their district issued device without an admin login. So the desktop app is not feasible for teachers in our district unless they use their personal device and install the Microsoft Visual C + + required. I am definitely not excited about the download requirement particularly since the desktop app looks to be more robust then their extension.

For a complete breakdown of Loom's features between their Free, Pro, and Desktop versions watch their video HERE.

Since Loom is offering their full Pro account FREE for educators (CLICK HERE for details) I recommend watching an overview video on YouTube which helped clarify some editing questions I had when I was first starting out. Loom also has a useful help center with lots of great getting started instructions.

Bottom line, Loom is a good simple to use free screencasting tool. The moveable camera bubble is my favorite feature and it has become my "go to" screencasting software if I am opting to have my face on the screen. For most of my screencasting needs I actually use screencast-o-matic because their editing tools are extensive and it is highly affordable (a three year subscription is only $36). I am just not a fan of the square camera picture in picture feature. It is my biggest wish that they develop a moveable round camera bubble option like Loom offers.

If you use a different screencasting software, or want to share your own experience with Loom, please comment below or on Twitter and tag me at @atechcoachlife.

Comments

Picture of the Day - Activity

I attended a training class and a science coach shared an activity that he does with his students to help them differentiate between observations, inferences, and predictions. He puts a picture on the interactive white board as a warm up (he gets the pictures from a variety of sources but uses National Geographic's Picture of the Day a lot). The picture above is from the National Geographic site. He has the students make five observations. Then he makes the students make five inferences. Finally he has the students make five predictions. He does this every day and it really drives home the difference between those three key inquiry vocabulary terms. I've done this activity with both my sixth and fourth grade science classes and the students really got into it and became proficient at telling me the difference between those terms.

Weathering, Erosion, and Deposition Activity

I saw this activity at a science conference years ago and haven't had a chance to use it in a classroom until this week (mainly because I didn't teach weathering, erosion, and deposition). It is a great way to reinforce the definition of the weathering, erosion, and deposition in a highly kinesthetic manner. Basically you break the students up into groups of three. One group is "Weathering" another group is "Erosion" and the third group is "Deposition". Add tape to the back because you are going to stick them to the forehead of the children in each group. The "weathering" students get a sheet of paper that is their "rock" they will be breaking down. At the start of the activity the "weathering" students will start ripping tiny pieces of their "rock" and handing it to the "erosion" students. The "erosion" students will be running their tiny piece of "rock&

Bill Nye Songs with Lyrics

At the end of the Bill Nye videos he always has a fun song that goes with the episode. You can find many of the songs as stand alone videos on YouTube. This came in handy because today I am teaching a lesson on layers of the atmosphere and found a song from his Atmosphere video on YouTube titled "Fresh Aire." I really wanted to remix it and put the lyrics on the video (so the kids could sing along and see how the lyrics matched the lesson). The first thing I did was found a site that has all the Bill Nye lyrics posted used my YouTube downloader ( see instructions here ) and downloaded the song. I then imported the video into Movie Maker Live and used the caption feature to put the lyrics on the different frames (cutting and pasting from the lyrics site into Movie Maker Live). I saved the video and reposted to YouTube so other teachers could use the video with lyrics (the finished video is posted above). The process was pretty easy and I am thinking about doing it for more

Notebooking, Teaching, and Technology

Search This Blog