In my previous post, I talked about an idea to have students screencast themselves typing Java code at the beginning of the unit and then doing the voiceovers using the proper vocabulary later in the unit.

My students finished their screencasts last week and it did not work the way I wanted to. The main flaw in my plan was that I over-estimated the video editing abilities of some of my students despite previous video editing assignments during their three years at my school. The result from this was that I had videos that last about four minutes and videos that lasted about 25 minutes.

The videos did not need to be a specific length in time, but the longer videos came from students that did not type well and the video was filled with “dead air” as the student waited for the typing to stop before explaining the next concept. The other part that did not work out well is that some of the students used the default iMac mic instead of plugging a microphone in and there is a lot of background noise. There was a huge quality difference between the students that went to the sound booth or a quiet room to record the audio and those that just used the computers in class.

My goal of having students understand the vocabulary better will be known later in the week when the students take a test on the chapter. Hopefully, despite the technical difficulties and range of quality videos, my students have improved their vocabulary skills.