App Review: Screencastify

For my app review, I decided to review the app Screencastify. This is an app I’ve been wanting to review so I was really excited to try.

FIRST, I had to download a chrome browser onto my computer. This was really easy and only took about 10 minutes.

Then, I downloaded the chrome screencastify extension onto my toolbar. It looks like a little rectangle. Once screencastify was installed on my computer, it walked me through most of the set up stuff. I had to click yes/no if I wanted it to access my webcam and microphone. It was really simple to install!

I decided to do a screencast of my professional portfolio! As I walked through it, I became more and more comfortable with using Screencasts. I started using the highlight feature to show exactly what I was talking about instead of just using the mouse icon to show!

I kind of noticed a little bit of lag as I scrolled and changed pages throughout my screencast. I’m wondering if this is just the app or my actual wifi, but I found it to be a little bit of a weakness.

I could totally see myself using this app in the classroom, especially for parents! More and more, we are seeing the use of technology in the classroom. Out students are growing with technology, but sometimes there is a gap with parents. I think this is something schools often forget… We need to remember that not all parents are going to perfectly understand the websites/apps/programs we are sending home online. I think this is where a screencastify could come in handy to walk parents through! I could also see myself teaching a new concept online/with some form of tech in the classroom and making a screencast for students to refer to when doing homework or working on projects on their own time!

Here is my screencast!