I can see myself using Camtasia to introduce my students to our class Wiki. It would be a beginning piece in our class that would kick off by describing what Camtasia is and what a Wiki is. Then it would go into a recorded tutorial that will show them how to access the wiki, set up pages, edit, and communicate throughout the semester. It will then discuss what is to be expected of students while working on a Wiki. Future lessons that will be recorded by Camtasia will be related to health and fitness items that students will have to explore and then complete their assignments from. Then their finished assignments will be posted into the Wiki. Also group project examples can be shown through Camtasia. I love Camtasia, I have always wondered how they implemented the screen you are looking at into their programs. Now the long lost question has been answered. From viewing the tutorials, navigating the program doesn’t seem to be that difficult and the editing features remind me of working with Windows Movie Maker and how they do their editing. All in all it seems to be a great program, and I can’t wait to get the time to fully explore making a program.
In reading the last three chapters in Trends and Issues I have realized that business, P-12, or higher education can continue to exist without the use of technology. Each group has slowly but surely come around to see that technology is a must. Some, like the business category, did it faster than education, but education is now making leaps and bounds. Another item I noticed throughout the chapters is how each has handled issues especially with change. Some have the distinct systems like the GSTE and others started right in on training through technology. For example the Camtasia, is a great training tool that education and business is using. I think some changes take longer, especially in education, due to the money that is involved to create the change. Businesses can move faster with implementing new changes because they have more control over their money. Being educators we have to wait for the trickle down effect. One thing I think my professional environment could take from this is that technology and continuing training are a necessity. I feel that some of the “seasoned” teachers that I work with have dropped of the side of the earth just because they are tenured and a few years from retirement. I feel if our staff could find good training programs that can keep them updated and introduce them or further enhance their knowledge in technology then we would all be better off. Jack Dempsey said “Full professors are the journeymen and journeywomen of academia.” (p.231) I believe anyone involved in education are the journeymen or women. When we short ourselves we are hurting our students not ourselves, and some of the staff I work with need to fully understand this.
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4 comments:
I too always wondered how a person was able to create a video of what they were doing on their computer. I suppose I always just thought that they set up a recorder somehow to the output, like they would do a projector. I really think that this would be a really useful tool. I am hopeing that at the school system that I will (hopefully) be at next year will have it.
I feel the same way about Camtasia in that I have also wondered how on screen tutorials are created. I can’t wait to get started with this program to find out what kind of wonderful things I can do with it. Introducing your students to a Wiki by the use of Camtasia is a great way to get started with this program and Wiki's. I am sure as new technologies come along a program such as Camtasia will enable us to introduce many new an exciting things to our students. This could be a good way to keep teachers interested and up to date with current technologies. Maybe this would be a good way to train teachers so that they feel comfortable with these new inovations.
I see the same thing happening with some of the older teachers at my school. They see that they are almost done and that there is really no reason to start doing things differently than they have in the past. This is too bad because their students could be getting so much more out of their education if these teachers would take some time to work more with technology in their classrooms. Who knows, maybe it would even help them in the future.
I too wondered (like everyone else) how they made those videos with computer actions on the screen. I like your idea of using Camtasia to introduce your class to what they will be doing and then having the class use it to create tutorials for a class wiki. Great way to combine two great ideas from this class.
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