Using Quicktime Screen Recording to Reflect

Students are always asked to reflect on their work. But how do we do this? Most of the time we get them to write a reflection. In my experience, these written reflections take a lot of time and students may not express their thoughts completely for a number of reasons. Students can be oversaturated by the sheer number of written reflections they are asked to complete and therefore don't always say everything they want to in their writing.

A great way around this is to have students use Quicktime screen recording on a Mac to show their thinking and reflect on their learning in a quick and simple way.

When most people think of Quicktime, they think of an application that is used to watch movies. However, there are three very useful functions available: movie recording using the isight camera, audio recording and screen recording. Although we have students use the movie recording function to capture videos of themselves and the audio recording to capture them speaking, I want to focus on the screen recording aspect.

When you select screen recording, the computer will record what is happening on your screen. You can either choose to have the whole screen or part of the screen to record. There are also options for the audio to be on (I always have it on so we can hear the students talk) and for the mouse clicks to be captured. I often use screen recordings to create tutorials for teachers, but they are perfect for students to reflect on their work and to capture their thinking.

In the example below, a student has used Quicktime to create a screen recording to explain the choices that they made when creating a poster. The student originally used Pages to create the poster and made 5 duplicate versions of the poster to gradually improve with each version. It didn't take long for the student to reflect on the process and what they did. This type of screen recording can prove very valuable to teachers.


Screen recording can take many forms for student reflections. Students can have a document written in Pages or Google Docs open and explain what they felt they did well and what they need to work on. They can highlight passages that show what they learned or what they were particularly proud of. If they are working on a specific skill, they could highlight where they have demonstrated that in their work.

When teachers start to see the value and ease at which these reflections can be made with Quicktime, they will realize that there are so many possibilities for using Quicktime screen recording in their classrooms.

Bling up your Google Forms with Images and Fonts

Google have updated forms with some great custom options for Google Forms. You can read about the update on their blog.

This is really exciting news for those of us who use forms a lot as the standard themes had become a little tired looking. The now you can select from a wide variety of fresh new themes.


But, there's a lot more available than just the new themes. For any theme you select, you can customize the theme by adding your own header image, changing the font, color, size and style for all the different text classes.

Growing Up Digital: Resources for Families

We recently hosted another edition of our annual Growing Up Digital night for grade 6 families and grade 7 and 8 families new to UWCSEA East. The evening's primary purpose is to provide space and time to begin the important conversations between Middle School students and their parents around how and when digital technology is used at home. We recognize that putting a device -- a Macbook Air -- in the hands of a (pre) teen can often change the dynamics of the home. While it's impossible (and, some might argue, inappropriate) for us to give blanket "digital rules" for every family, we do think it's crucial for each family to have conversations to determine parameters and agreements for technology and media in the home. Growing Up Digital night acts as a prompt to begin these discussions, guided by our leadership team and Digital Literacy Coaches, who can act as both facilitators and consultants with families.

Slides from the evening are below. You'll note that a significant part of the evening -- nearly 30 minutes -- was for active discussion between parents and children around the Family Media Agreement.



As promised, we have for you a list of resources to help you navigate your conversations about Growing Up Digital in your family. We've roughly divided these into three categories, but you'll note that there is a lot of overlap between them.

Time Management Tools

SelfControl is an app for Mac OSX that you can set to block what you determine to be distracting websites. You can block them for a certain period of time, or forever. 

StayFocusd is a Chrome extension you can use similarly to SelfControl, but just for sites you access in your Chrome browser. It's highly customizable -- you can set it to kick in at the same times every day, for example -- and easy to set up. However, keep in mind it is only for one specific browser. 

RescueTime is an app that installs on your Mac or mobile device, and it tracks all of the time you spend on every app or website. It automatically determines standard "productivity" ratings for each site and app, but you can customize this in a very granular way. While RescueTime does not block or limit any apps or sites, it's an excellent tool to use to track how you are actually using your digital time. Each week it sends you a report with detailed infographics which you can view by the day, week, or month. 

Parental Controls exist in the System Preferences panel of your Mac. You may want to consider setting up a separate "study buddy" account on your Mac that has Parental Controls enabled. 

The Tomato Timer is a web-based tool based on the Pomodoro Technique. (There are several other tools and apps available based on this technique -- a quick search will turn up hundreds of hits!) Set the timer and while it is running (25 min), dedicate your time to focus on a specific task. When the timer finishes, take a break! Check your Facebook, go for a walk, get a drink, and then get back to work. 

Tips for managing media at home

Common Sense Media is one of our favorite organizations, and they have several ideas to help you manage devices at home, from setting screen limits to helping kids use Facebook (or not) for homework. On a related note, our colleagues at Dover have written a piece about how multi-tasking and learning don't mix very well. 

For families who would like to set up filters, there are a couple of solid options. Norton Family allows you to set filters on specific computers and other devices. If you'd like something that isn't device-specific but rather filters all traffic into the home, Starhub and SingTel both offer "safe surfing" options, though there is a small monthly fee for these services. 

School policies

You and your child signed several forms before we allowed you to take that laptop home. If you'd like to review the official policies and protocols for use of College technology, on and off campus, our College iLearn page has all the paperwork you need. 

We're here to help! Please feel free to email us or stop by our desks in C319. 

The Noun Project

Thumbs Up designed by Nick Holroyd
from the thenounproject.com

I would like to highlight one of my favourite sites ever:
The Noun Project. It is incredibly useful in the classroom, and is a delight to use.

You can search for anything on The Noun Project and find a graphical representation of it.

Designers upload their creations to the site, and people can download and use these icons as long as they attribute the designer. Attribution is made incredibly easy: all you do is click on the 'how to attribute' button, and it's all ready for you to copy-and-paste.

The really exciting thing for me, is the ability to change the colour of the icons using a simple Chrome Extension called
'The PNG Project'. Provided you know the hex code (I use the websafe colour palette in Pages or Keynote to find mine usually - though a google search of hex codes would lead you to some great sites), you can change the icons to match whichever colour scheme you like.

For details on how to use The Noun Project, please watch the tutorial below.

The Noun Project from UWC South East Asia on Vimeo.