Tools for Teaching
NB: I will update this as time passes. [Current version updated 28 February 2020]
I’ve recently done a bunch of research to help me find good tools for some teaching tasks, and I wanted to share what I found. Note that I am a devoted PC user; some of these tools are likely available on the Mac, but I can’t comment as to their effectiveness.
For recording screencasts (where you talk and show something on your computer at the same time), I found this blog post, which was extremely helpful. After some additional searching and reading of reviews, I decided to give Screencast-o-matic a try, and I love it. The tool lets me select only the region of the screen I want to make visible (so I don’t have to hide personal stuff or worry about what tabs I have open), and I can also show my face (which I don’t love, but I think it’s often useful to let people see you talking), and recording was an absolute breeze. And the free version allows recordings of up to fifteen minutes, which is considerably longer than some free programs. There’s a watermark on videos unless you subscribe, but it’s small. Overall, highly recommended.
I also want to recommend Brackets. If you’re like me (and that’s not very likely) you sometimes need to edit HTML code, and the WordPress interface ain’t all that. Brackets is free, open source, and powerful. It made search and replace easy, sped up some basic repetitive tasks, and I expect is a fantastic tool for more serious coding as well. YMMV.
I also found myself struggling with Movie Maker, which is extremely limited, while editing and adding credits and title screens to short videos. If you want additional editing options, you simply need a better tool. After a fair bit of searching, I selected Lightworks, which is free but pretty complex. I haven’t used it much yet, so bear with me. A more detailed report will be forthcoming. OK, that didn’t work for me. So, I spent a ton more time searching and I came up with VSDC. None of these tools are super easy to use, but the free version did what I wanted it to, and didn’t force a huge watermark on my video as so many other video tools on the Internet do. (User beware!) The really funny part of this story is: I later realized I actually own Adobe Premiere Elements, which I ought to be using. Ah, well. (Adobe offers inexpensive non-subscription versions of this software to students and faculty, so check ’em out. They’re $79.99 through my school for both.)
I also want to suggest giving Open Shot a try. This video editor (which I haven’t tried yet, but will soon) is free and open source, and has versions for the PC, Mac, and Linux. Please also take a look at this fantastic PDF resource put together by my colleague, Oscar Keyes, which lists a wide array of open source or free multimedia tools. He also strongly recommends in-class teacher-led learning opportunities, and in-class work time, which I will be implementing more in-depth this semester (Spring 2020). I’ll report back.
Some other tools I’ve worked with include Doodle, which I’ve used fairly often and love for scheduling; I and my students have used Survey Monkey for short surveys (up to 10 questions is free); and I recently used appear.in for a video conference, and was impressed by how ridiculously easy it was to use. My colleague, Ryan Cales, has also used it and likes it a lot. Note, however, that further use has not been without hiccups. I mostly just use Skype now, which has its issues but is free and pretty universal. Skype isn’t that great if you have low-speed internet, actually. If you feel like paying the $15/month, which a colleague of mine has, Zoom is really wonderful. More robust/reliable, and a nicer interface. Also, many schools (including VCU) have some level of account setup with Zoom, so it’s worth looking into. I’ve also used Google Meet when I’m holding online office hours or otherwise meeting with students. It’s been great for that, so far, and of course it’s free.
For tools that allow quizzing in class, I found and loved Kahoot. A high-schooler I know told me she’s used it in school and really likes it, and students respond really well to the colorful and often familiar interface. Sadly, the answers to questions can’t be more than 60 characters (and the questions can’t be more than 95 characters), thus making it usually unusable for me. (I wanted to use it for punctuation quizzes, but the sentences students needed to chose from are sometimes much longer than 60 characters.) What I found and am using instead is Socrative, which is less attractive but quite powerful. See this blog post for more details. Ultimately, I believe VCU should get a site license for one or two similar tools. I’ll be here holding my breath on that one. (Note: Still waiting. Turning blue. Send help.) If you’re creating your own web content and want to add quizzes, give H5P a look. There are many options for creating interactive content, though it’s a bit time consuming. I used it with some material I’ve put together about using semicolons, to get a sense of one thing the tool is useful for.
I have also recently needed to do some stuff with PDFs, but I don’t have Adobe Acrobat. There are many tools and options for tasks like saving webpages as PDFs, converting PDFs to Word (and vice versa, plus other formats), and combining two or more PDFs into one file.
Lastly, I would like to recommend this site for downloading either video or audio versions of YouTube videos. The site isn’t terribly intuitive, but it works quite well. I used it to make a local copy of my favorite sounds for studying, so I can listen to it even if the Internet is down–and without the added overhead of video. But it’s also great for having local copies of videos for classes, getting clips from those videos, and so forth.
And I also really enjoy using Ambient Mixer to play sounds in the background while I work. I especially like The Shores of Valinor, various Harry Potter backgrounds (I love a good fire in the fireplace!), and some ocean and forest sounds.
Hope this is useful! Send me recommendations if you have them.
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