I was recommended A new app last week was screencast-o-matic. This application allows you to record the screen that you’re working on but also at the same time displays a picture of you speaking. This means that students can follow along with what you are doing on the screen and follow your expression with the hope they will engage more as they can see you. There are a few nice features, for example you can draw on the screen and this will show on top of what you’re doing. In other words, you can use PowerPoint slides, press a button and draw on these. While this is occurring you can still have your video stream of you speaking so the students can watch expression and hear your commentary.
The below screenshot shows A video that I made using the software. You will see that there was a web browser with a screenshot of a video that I made using the software. Notice at the bottom right of the browser or screenshot there is a small box with a picture of me talking. This is a live stream Of me talking about the website as I manipulate it. An advantage of this is that it allows students to see your expression see your hand movements and to make your presentation a little more personal than a plane voice-over slides.
On reflection, the application was easy to download and install and there were both Mac and Windows versions. The free version of this will allow you to record 15 minutes of the video and save this is an MP4. Even though, I found that using it was easy and intuitive, I suggest you use the trial version to start with. A feature that could be improved on, is when you are using the software in full screen mode the play pause button sometimes covers the icon that you can click to switch between modes. There is a workaround, which is to go into the preferences file and set a key combination to change screen modes and this is what I needed to do.
The below video is an example Of using the software to show you what you are likely to see.
