Why Doceri?

Rebecca tried all manner of screencasting apps but ended up choosing Doceri because it gave her the complexity and control to plan out her lessons. The writing is smooth and the editing system gives many options. Once she became comfortable with stops and the timeline the videos just flowed and she was hooked on Doceri. “No other app lets me sit and write out my lesson at my own pace yet allows me to plan for the delivery by controlling the speed while recording.”

At first, Rebecca wasn’t sure her students liked the video style or found it helpful, but every once in a while due to time constraints she will post a link to a video made by someone else, or one of my old pre-Doceri videos.  “The next day, I will hear complaints about having to watch those videos, so I am taking that to be a vote of support from the students.”

Rebecca further explained, “Doceri has made my transition from Sage-On-The-Stage to Guide-On-The-Side pretty painless.  It has also made me refocus on what we consider core content and what is just bloat in the curriculum.  If we want students to gain a real understanding of concepts we need to make the supporting lectures for those concepts transparent with as few examples as possible (two at the most.) I try not to get bogged down in minutiae.  This allows me to use class time to support students putting new concepts into practice and tease out the intricacies of the content.”

Screencasting Tips

Rebecca discussed her video creation process and explained that the hardest thing about screencasting for her is the planning stage. It’s a challenge to develop a specific outline that has everything she wants to include in the video.  She says, “It doesn’t all have to be written out explicitly first, but I do need a list of all the examples, experiments, and terms I want to discuss. The goal is always to reduce the content down to approximately approximately a 6-7 minute video.

She went on to discuss the recording, “After I have a content list I park myself on the couch with my iPad and a stylus and start writing and drawing out the lesson.  This includes a lot of revising on the fly, which is why I LOVE the timeline! For physics, I just record from the Doceri interface directly and upload to YouTube.

My physics videos were recorded almost 2 years ago.  For AP Biology I make a title slide in PowerPoint, then I use ScreenFlow to record the opening credits. The students requested the picture in picture talking head so I airplay into my MacBook, then record the Doceri lesson and myself from there.  It seems like an overly complicated method but it allows me to hand write the lessons without having to write while talking, OR having to sync up the talking head to the Doceri recording later.”

Rebecca stated,”I do a small amount of splicing and editing on the videos for AP Biology. I never start over from scratch, I just pause and start talking wherever I feel like I messed up.  The videos aren’t perfect, but neither are lectures in class. When I first started screencasting I would spend hours on a video, now if the lesson is previously written in Doceri I can record, edit, and have 5 published in under 2 hours!”

Just Start!

Rebecca’s advice for beginning Doceri screencasters is to start small with something that is just a single concept, or perhaps a quick compare and contrast. She further explains,”Take your time writing out what you want it to look like and then replay that slide while recording. The most important advice I have is, Just start! You can’t improve if you don’t start. Oh, and invest in a decent stylus.”