This past February, I missed three days of school because of the flu.  During this time, I used Screencastify to go over instructions for a new lesson for my 4th period Frosh Creation class.  Thinking about how the lesson had gone with 3rd period, I was pretty nervous since so many students needed individual help.  However, much to my surprise, the projects created by my 4th period class were right on track and quite impressive.  To be honest, I think the projects from my 4th period class were, as a whole, better than 3rd period.  I learned a few things from this experience:

• My class will be ok without me (I have a really hard time being absent because I worry so much).
• Sometimes not being there to help, and hand-hold, students will learn more because they are forced to think, try things out, ask other classmates, or Google it.  
• I am sometimes too nice.  I want to help my students and feel bad turning them away.  However, I can’t sit with every student and walk them through the lesson (even if I’m making sure not to do the work for them).
• Creating screencasts are an easy way to save time – especially when many students are absent for the original lesson.  
• Screencasts allow students to watch, pause, or replay the video as many times as they need and whenever they need. 
• Students see a step-by-step through a simulation.
• Screencasting allows me to “be there” without really being there.  This is especially helpful on days when I am absent.  
• Screencastify is a great app, but you can’t download your screencast in a file format that is easily used (or accepted by the College Board for the AP test 😕).  Other alternatives that allow you to save the file in an mp4 format would be screencast-o-matic and Loom.