Welcome to Gaia! :: View User's Journal | Gaia Journals

Screencasting on an iPad

Whether you are flipping your classroom, or just looking to create some quick tutorials, iPad screencasting apps are a great place to start. There are lots to choose from, but the basics are the same. You tap record and everything you say or draw on the screen will be recorded and saved as a video on your iPad.

Teachers use them to create mini-lessons for students (and other teachers), while kids use them to demonstrate their learning and share it with the world. So, which one is right for you? Let's find out!

Educreations (Free)

Educreations was one of the first screencasting apps available for the iPad, and it remains a popular choice with educators. It has 10 ink colors to choose from, a useful text tool, and the ability to add images from the camera roll, Dropbox, or the Internet. You can also snap a picture from inside the app and use that too.

You can animate images by dragging them around the screen while you record, and scroll the page when you need more space. Any mistakes you make are easily fixed with the eraser or undo tools.

Finished screencasts can be uploaded to a private, online class that you create for your students, or embedded on blogs and websites as needed. Alternatively, you can browse the library of lessons educators have shared with the world to see if you can find a relevant video without having to create one yourself.

ShowMe (Free)

ShowMe is another iPad screencasting app that has been around for a long time. In fact, for a while, it was the only real competition for Educreations, but as you will see as you read through this list, times have changed.

ShowMe has all the basic features you would expect, but honestly, not a whole lot more. There is a pen tool, an eraser, and an image tool. Multiple pages can be added, but there is no option to rerecord individual pages. So, if you make a mistake you can't recover from, you need to start again.

One of the more useful features is the Groups option. It lets you share screencasts with your students, or have students share their screencasts with the rest of the class in a secure, private environment. It even lets you track student viewing habits and post comments to a discussion board. However, the Groups feature does require a $5 per month subscription.

ScreenChomp (Free)

ScreenChomp, by TechSmith, is one of the simplest screencasting apps to use, but it still has some really useful features that make it ideal for the classroom. For instance, you can import PDFs from Dropbox and mark them up as part of your screencast. This is ideal for demonstrating student assignments, or grading papers in a new and interactive way.

You can also set up to three different pen widths and colors and save them to your toolbar so that you can quickly switch from one pen to another. Finished screencasts are uploaded to TechSmith's servers and you can copy or email a URL to share with others. ScreenChomp is very easy to use so there are few better ways to to get started with an iPad screencast.

Doceri Interactive Whiteboard (Free)

Doceri is an app with two distinct functions. On the one hand, it is a powerful, free screencasting app that can be used to record iPad screencasts. It has a wealth of sophisticated drawing and annotation tools, many of which other screencasting apps struggle to come close to. Highlighters, brush tools, spray cans, shape tools and arrows are all part of your arsenal of tools, and each one can be customized for color, size, spacing and opacity.

There are also a myriad of backgrounds that you can choose for your screencast, including graph papers, maps, sheet music, and more. There are even nice options like a wrist guard to help cut down on unwanted mistakes.

The other side of the app requires you to buy a license for the Doceri desktop software. With this installed, you can use the same annotation tools to record over anything you can show on your computer. So, PowerPoints, websites, graphics programs and more can all be used, recorded and annotated over using Doceri on your iPad. Currently the desktop app costs $30, but you can try it for free for 30 days.

Teach by Knowmia (Free)

Teach is a very good screencasting app with an incredible amount of options for a free app. It lets you create short lessons that you can upload and share with students, and the world, on Knowmia.com.

Teach has an intuitive, and familiar, slide sorter interface that lets you build up your lesson in logical steps. Slides can be rearranged, duplicated or deleted with ease. There is a pen tool, image tool, text tool, and shape tool, all of which are flexible enough to give you the options you need to create a great screencast. You can even record yourself as part of the video by turning on Face Recording!

Doodlecast Pro ($4.99)

Doodlecast Pro is among the more expensive screencasting apps available for the iPad, so is it worth the money? It offers a lot of the standard features you come to expect in a screencasting app, but still has some nice touches that are included to try and make it stand out from the pack.

There is a fill tool, that will change the color of your canvas to one of over 30 different colors. Doodlecast Pro also has a cursor tool that can be used while you are recording to highlight certain parts of your screen. This can customized to one of eight different shapes. Among the backgrounds you can choose are some sporting images like a basketball court, soccer or football field, and this could be great for recording your favorite tactical plays. You can also import PDFs from other apps and mark those up as part of your recording.

Ask3 (Free)

This screencasting app is unique among its peers, and is ideal for flipped or blended learning classrooms. With Ask3, the teacher can create classes for their students to join via a class code. Once enrolled in the class, any screencast that the teacher creates is automatically pushed out to all students in that class. No need to share links, embed on a website or anything else. The video is delivered automatically to the Ask3 app on the student device, and can even be watched offline.

Additionally, students can leave comments or questions on the recorded screencasts. These comments are viewable by others in the class so students can help answer questions from their classmates in a private class video forum. Students can also leave a video response at any given point in the screencast to try and elicit their understanding further, or to show what they need more help with. Oh, and the app is free!

LivePaper (Free or $5.99)

The paid version of LivePaper is the most expensive screencasting app in this collection, but the ad-supported free version lets you try out the majority of the same features to help you decide if it is worth the extra money or not. Regardless of which version you choose, you will quickly find that the focus of this app is a little different from all the rest.

The purpose of LivePaper is to give you the ability to record audio while taking notes. So, students could be taking notes on a lesson given by the teacher, while recording handwritten notes at the same time. LivePaper takes both recordings, syncs them together, and combines them into a video to watch and scan through later.

So, it's perfect for those times where you might wonder why on earth you wrote what you did at a given point in your notes. With LivePaper, you can scan ahead to that point in the lecture and hear what the teacher was saying when you wrote those very words!

Teachers could also use it during professional development meetings or at conferences as long as the audio is loud enough to be recorded on the iPad's microphone.

Sago Mini Doodlecast ($2.99)

Sago's Mini Doodlecast is an iPad screencasting app for your youngest kids. Aimed at children aged 2-6, it works in very much the same way as the others in this list by recording the child's voice and drawings at the same time.

However, it comes with over 30 drawing prompts to encourage children to draw with purpose and talk about what they are drawing. It can be a great collaborative app where children can work together on the same iPad to complete a drawing, or with a parent or teacher. Finished recordings can be shared by email or exported to the camera roll. Sago Mini Doodlecast is a paid app, but there are no in-app purchases or ads to distract students from their creations. Watch the video below for more information.