Screencasting

I recently felt the need to create a screencast to help one of my students understand the steps to follow in creating a blogroll in Blogger.  Previously I had always found already created Youtube videos sufficient and didn't see any reason to "reinvent the wheel."

However,  I thought that this time I would try creating my own screencast through a free took called Screencastomatic since I wanted to personalize the screencast using examples the student was familiar with.

I was surprised to find the recorder exceptionally easy to use and will consider using it more in the future.  I think that instead of  or in addition to writing out a long list of steps to follow in my future syllabi, I may start creating more screencasts.  

I think that seeing a screencast may be a useful enhancement for the learners in my course.  I'm definitely going to look at the upcoming mods in my course to see if some screencasts might be helpful.

Electronic Village Online

Time to sign up for some of the best, free professional development courses for second and foreign language teachers.  The Electronic Village Online (EVO) is offered each year by groups of experienced teachers who volunteer to share their expertise.  This year's selection of 5-week courses for EVO 2014 includes mini-courses on The Use of Mobile applications in Language Classes, Podcasting for the ESL-EFL Classroom, Using Technology for Content and Language Learning Integrated Learning, and many more.

Although aimed primarily at teachers of English, many of the courses work equally well for world language teachers.  Check out all the offerings.  Registration begins on January 6.