Screenr As Your Spotter

You have probably heard a great deal about the flipped classroom, where instruction on new material occurs as homework and the in-class time is spent with the teacher acting as a mentor, ensuring students understand the material and can apply it.  Screenr is a fantastic web-based application that can help make this a reality for your classroom.  Even if you aren’t a teacher, you can easily create and distribute short (maximum recording time of five minutes) instructional videos.

Requirements

Screenr requires you to have Java installed on your computer and you need a free account.  Other than that, there is nothing to install.  It all runs off of the www.screenr.com website.

To play Screenr files on a computer, you need the Flash player.  However, you can also play Screenr videos on iPhones and iPads, even though Flash isn’t an option there, with nothing to install.  When you are finished creating a video, you will get a link to that screencast that looks similar to this: http://www.screenr.com/1234, where 1234 is the code representing your video.

How to use Screenr

Once you have installed Java (it will prompt you if you don’t have it) and created an account, you click the large ‘Launch screen recorder now!’ button on the website.  You will then be prompted with the following dashed line rectangle representing the recording size. 

You can test your microphone levels or select an alternate recording method with the mic link and bars at the bottom.  You can adjust your capture size by dragging the handles or selecting the ‘Capture Size’ button at the bottom.  Clicking on that button, you can also select Full Screen to capture the entire monitor.  You can move your recording window by dragging the instructions in the middle of the window.  Once you have everything set up, you click the red record button.

Tips and Tricks

Screenr is simple to use.  Its power and speed are in that simplicity.  Do you want to include transitions, text, background music?  You can’t.  Well, actually you could turn on the boom box in the room where you are doing recording, but that would just be annoying.  The simplicity of not having the ability to do these things makes Screenr as quick to record as it is to watch. 

Here are a few tricks that might help you along the way:

• Plan and practice what you want to do and say.  While you don’t need to get everything perfect, a little practice and organization will go a long way.
• If you are capturing full screen, you can’t see the timer.  As such, it is important to use another timer to keep track of how much time you have left.  You can cram a lot of information in five minutes, but you don’t want it to cut you off with one sentence to go.
• Your laptop has a microphone built in, but you should use an external one for better quality. However, you don’t need to purchase an expensive microphone.  If you have a pair of iPhone headphones with a built in mic, and you are recording in a reasonably quiet room, that should suffice. 
• If you are using a Mac, Screenr has difficulties running out of Safari when the browser is run in full screen mode.  The simple fix here is to click the arrow in the upper right corner to exit full screen mode while working with Screenr.
• If you need a moment to think about what to say next, or you don’t want to waste time with a screen load, you can press Alt-D or Option-D to pause the recording.  This will allow you time to get ready and continue the recording. 
• While the simplicity of a web-based tool is wonderful, you might be in an environment where Java is out of the question.  If that is the case, you might also want to take a look at Jing.  Jing is a downloadable software application that is very similar to Screenr.  From TechSmith (as opposed to Screenr from Articulate), if you are looking to break the 5 minute barrier and add additional complex features, you can also take a look at SnagIt (not free).