Lovin' Loom: Creating Engaging Screencasts for Students

Not all screencasting tools are created the same! In fact, you might want to consider using tools that provide you with the option of showing your face. A study by Guo in 2014 found that students who saw the face of their teacher were much more engaged in screencasts than those who didn't. The study also found that after 6 minutes of video, students started to lose interest.

Loom is a free tool that provides you with several important features to keep students engaged:

• The presenter can present information from their screen and webcam at the same time. 

• Loom allows the presenter to adjust the size and location of their webcam video.

• Videos are automatically published to Loom and can be shared via a link.

• Students can leave their reactions via thumbs up/down or emojis throughout the video. This interaction is great! Especially if you ask for student feedback, such as "give me a thumbs up / down to tell me if this content makes sense."

Although Loom is an asynchronous tool (meaning it's recorded and not live), it can still provide you with the right type of information to help students understand and engage with content. Want to learn how to use it? Check out my video tutorial below: