MS Word Screencast Reflection

We received good feedback from the Google form; overall it was positive but there was some helpful constructive criticism as well. I was surprised by some of the comments. For instance, I thought that our presentation was clear and slow but we received some comments that it was too fast and hard to follow. This shows to me that sometimes what makes sense to us doing the presentation may not fully make sense to the viewers. Some of the feedback was helpful too because it made me realize that a MS Word feature that seems basic and easy to me (such as footnotes, because I use them all the time in history papers) is actually a new or challenging concept to people from other disciplines. Therefore, though they were glad that we included this skill in our Special Features presentation, I probably should have gone a little slower to explain it.

The other groups' screencasts were very helpful. I was already pretty familiar with PowerPoint, so I didn't learn as much from that presentation, but I learned a lot from the Excel presentation and I think it would be helpful for grading in the future. However, with all of the presentations, it is difficult to absorb the material after only one viewing. Since the Excel information is new and complex to me, I would probably have to watch it several times and take notes to fully understand it for future use. However, PowerPoint is definitely a tool I would use in the classroom, especially for pictures and video.

Students can benefit from the screencasts as well, especially because they may be unaware of the advanced features. I would most want my students to be aware of how to footnote (since I will be teaching social studies) and how to use track changes (since I am a big believer in the need for revision and editing in essays). They will also need to know how to make powerpoints for their own presentations. They could also use Excel to make charts and graphs for an Economics or Geography class.

I'm not sure if I would use screencasts in my future classroom. Screencasts seem to be very good for giving step by step instructions in specific tasks. I'm not sure how much of that kind of work I will be having my students do. I might want to make a screencast, however, to give an overview of the technology the class will be working with. For example, I plan on having a class wiki and forum where the the students can post their work and questions (I also might have them keep a weekly blog). If they are unfamiliar with this online technology, I can make a screencast showing them how to set up their account and walk them through the steps. In particular, students who are visual learners would greatly benefit from screencasts because they would be able to see what was going on instead of just hearing it.