Using video during the COVID pandemic has truly been a lifesaver for me as a teacher. It enabled me to provide asynchronous learning to my second grade students, which in turn, helped them to continue to progress in their learning despite being home in quarantine.

One of our teacher trainings was all about different video recording tools where we explored different programs like Loom, Screencastify, and Powtoon. I loved Powtoon for introducing concepts and reviewing expectations such as Zoom meeting behaviors. However, when it came to instructional videos, I started using Loom for my recordings but quickly switched to Screencastify. I found the editing tools to be easier to use as well as the program as a whole was just more user friendly. I really liked the uncomplicated snipping tool is more simple than other editing tools I have seen. An added bonus is that Screencastify automatically saves your video immediately into your Google Drive. I like this because I don’t need to remember to do it myself. Often while virtual teaching you are pulled into many directions and can easily be distracted by a parent, coworker, or admin email, and you can forget to do the all-important “hit save” button. The autosave on Google Drive is helpful for me as a Virginia Beach teacher because of the fact the district uses Google Drive as our main platform. I can easily create folders of my videos and share the entire folder with coworkers.

My only complaint with Screencastify is that it does take a bit to get the video downloaded into Google Drive. You can share the link to the video as soon as you are done recording and editing, but many times if you do that it will say “Video still processing”. If you are wanting to make a video and have it immediately available (like within seconds), this is not the tool to use. In my experience, it can take anywhere from 30 minutes to 24 hours for the video to be uploaded and viewable.