Teachers teaching Touchcast

August 21, 2013 Audrey Homan 1 Comment Touchcast

We’re sharing the screencasting love over here at the Institute, thanks in no small part to #btv librarian-rockstar Shannon Walters (@shannonwa), who introduced us to Touchcast. This free iOS app enables users to create videos for tablet and web that let you embed linked webpage images, polls, other videos (oh the meta!) and use a whiteboard, teleprompter, commenting and titles. It’s an interesting new entry into the iPad-based video-editing market.

And how are teachers using it? Here’s a Touchcast made by the principal of Roosevelt Elementary School, in California, welcoming students for the year:

A woman's head and shoulders are visible in front of a photo of a garden corridor. She appears to be paused mid-sentence. Next to her head is a box with the text, "Do you think Roosevelt should invest in more iPads?" Underneath are the words Yes and No. — Your viewers can vote in polls on-screen without interrupting the video.

And here’s Winooski art teacher and Tarrant partner educator Jessica Bruce, with What I Plan To Do With the Rest of My Summer (bonus points for recording while being distracted by cat):

A video closeup of a woman's face. She's wearing glasses, and next to her on-screen is a preview of the Vermont State Parks website. — Touchcast lets you embed short previews of webpages in your video, and viewers can click or tap through to visit them.

If you’re reading this entry on an iOS device, you can access both Touchcasts through the app and save them to your Bookmarks, or Recast them (like retweeting) to your channel. Any other teachers want to share how they’re using Touchcast?

Maybe by making a Touchcast of their plans?

Say it with me again: Oh, the meta.

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Audrey Homan

Audrey Homan is a Vermont-based digital media producer, and producer of The 21st Century Classroom podcast. She's worked in non-profit communications for more than a decade, and in her spare time writes tiny video games and mucks about with augmented reality and arduinos, ably assisted by five dogs. Interviewing students and yelling in PHP are the best parts of her job.

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