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Making the most of your online class -
screen capture software serves educators, students
As a teacher of an online learning course, the computer is your
playground. Anything you can find or do on a computer, you can implement
into your lessons. And as a student in an online class, you also
can take advantage of all of a computer's resources to make your
learning a meaningful experience. As a result, introducing screen
capture tools into your online classroom benefits both students
and teachers. Due to their versatility and ease of use, screen recording
and screen capture tools are a natural fit for your academic needs.
With screen recording tools, you can record videos of on-screen
activity from any application. Just record a screen, window, or
region with a single click. If desired, you can add explanatory
text, drawings and cursor highlights. To further assist the learning
process, you can narrate the video. You can edit the video and export
it in a variety of formats - burn it on a CD, place it on a Web
site, or save it to a file.
It doesn't matter whether you're a computer teacher demonstrating
a function, an English teacher showing a PowerPoint presentation
or an engineering professor explaining a design - screen recording
tools are useful for every educational method in an online classroom.
By showing a process rather than just telling someone how to complete
a task, you provide students with a more valuable learning experience.
And students - imagine how you can impress your teachers with your
professional-quality presentations and projects! Screen recording
tools are so easy to learn, that after just a few minutes of experimenting,
you'll be able to create, edit and share a video of onscreen activity.
Enhance your classroom - and your grade - by using screen recording
tools this school year.
With screen capture tools, you can capture images, text, and video
from your Windows desktop. From the smallest icon to the entire
scrolling screen, you can capture any image you want. And since
you can choose exactly what you capture, you can leave behind any
section of the image you don't want.
Screen capture tools offer so many capturing, organizational, and
editing options that their capabilities clearly extend far beyond
just taking screenshots. You can capture images from scanners and
digital cameras, and you can also use web capture to simultaneously
take multiple images off the Internet. As an added benefit, many
tools include an editor, so you can mark up images with arrows and
explanatory text.
And since Web sites factor so much into the learning process, a
special function of screen capture tools especially serves teachers
and students - some software programs allow you to capture an entire
Web page as a single image, instead of copying screen by screen.
The screen capture program will automatically scroll to the bottom
and to the right of the window so you can easily select the entire
image at one time, not just the portion that you see on the screen.
If you need any image for use in a presentation, Web site, or printed
class material - it's so easy to capture with screen capture tools.
Online education is often touted as the future of learning. As we
approach this future, we believe that it will be the learning models
that will decide the fate of most online schools. The educational
institutions that implement the best models will reap the highest
rewards.
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A math professor records his
entire class - both a video of him solving problems on a projected
computer screen and a record of the class discussion - and
distributes the lecture on CDs to all his students. |
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A teacher captures screen images
of his past online courses and sites to create PowerPoint
and Web-based presentations for his current classes. |
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A teacher records problems being
solved step-by-step on a whiteboard, and adds his voice to
help explain the solution. He then posts them on the class
Web site. |
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An educator embeds screen videos
into PowerPoint presentations - they are then available to
her year after year. |
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A professor includes an instructional
CD with her book, so students can actually see the written
procedures in motion. |
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Engineering students capture
pictures of their designs to use in their final online reports. |
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Computer students use the special
capture tool to capture entire Web sites for use in projects. |
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Students record narrated PowerPoint
presentations to publish online. |
Students - automatically get that extra technological edge you
need to succeed. And educators - start off the school year by finally
creating the innovative classroom you've always wanted. Together
with screen recording and screen capture tools, teachers and students
receive the best possible learning experience.
About the author
Carla Wardin is a technical marketing writer. Prior to writing,
she taught English Composition and English as a Second Language
at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb. She now resides in Cary,
NC.
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