Website review by Amy Lauren Botula, Common Sense Education | Updated August 2021
Screencastify
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Screencastify

Easy screen-recording tool facilitates outside-the-box instruction

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Learning rating
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Community rating
Based on 19 reviews
Privacy rating
82%| Pass Expert evaluation by Common Sense
Grades
3–12
Subjects & Skills
Communication & Collaboration, Creativity
Great for
Assessment, Presentation, Classroom Management, Instructional Strategies
Price:  Free, Paid
Platforms:  Website
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Take a look inside

7 images
Use the drop-down menu to choose audio and video options before recording.
Move the location of the embedded video so that content is visible.
The premium version offers a few post-production editing tools such as cropping, splitting, and merging.
Take advantage of the tutorial library to learn basic and advanced techniques.
Assign students screen recordings through the Submit feature.
Assignments have some simple privacy settings.
The editing tool is easy to use and surprisingly flexible.

Pros: Great blend of features. Submit feature allows students to easily complete screencast assignments.

Cons: Limited to Chrome devices and browsers. Editing not as robust as competitors'.

Bottom Line: This is an instructional tool that could reinvent classroom workflow, especially for classrooms in the Google ecosystem.

How Can I Teach with This Tool?

Screencastify could become the anchor of a flipped classroom; however, teachers will want to avoid using Screencastify as yet another lecture tool. Teachers and students will want to start the process with an outline and maybe even a script to ensure that they're not filling their videos with filler words, awkward pauses, unclear or off-topic statements, or boring content. Teachers and students could evaluate TED talks, famous speeches, or popular YouTube videos to study and incorporate some rhetorical tricks.

In terms of day-to-day use, teachers could record themselves explaining difficult concepts, recapping the day's main objectives, demonstrating an idea, or giving students audio or video feedback on their work. They could also use screencasts to communicate with parents, explaining procedures or bringing a personal touch to the traditional classroom newsletter. Students could use Screencastify to demonstrate what they've learned or how they solved a problem, give presentations, catch up their absent peers, make and read ebooks, or practice reading aloud in a foreign-language class. The Submit feature makes this particularly easy.

Administrators could make use of Screencastify too: facilitating virtual faculty meetings, sharing professional development, or providing training for new employees. For educators who need even more ideas, the wide variety of support options available will help them brainstorm the best uses for Screencastify in and out of school.

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Put this tool into practice:

Screencastify is a Chrome browser extension that allows you to record, edit, and assign screencasts. To get started with Screencastify, click the icon in the Chrome toolbar and choose among the recording options: record a single tab in your web browser, capture all screen activity, or use your webcam to record or insert a video of yourself. While recording, use the tools to write, draw, erase, keep time, restart, or spotlight a section on the screen. There's also an option to play the audio in a tab that you're recording. 

Recordings can be saved to Google Drive, shared to Google Classroom, uploaded to YouTube (with more customizable options available in the settings menu), or exported as MP4, GIF, or MP3. The free version of Screencastify allows up to five minutes per video. The premium version has unlimited recording. The editing tool features cropping, trimming, splitting, merging, and the option to put text over clips or blur sections of a video. The free version is limited to exporting five-minute-long edited videos, while the premium upgrade removes this restriction. The most recent feature, Screencastify Submit, allows teachers to assign video creation to students with just a link. The free version supports one Submit assignment at a time, and a premium upgrade gets you unlimited active assignments. Assignments get saved to Google Drive.

Screencastify makes screen recording easy to implement -- and frustration free -- for teachers and students alike. The available tools -- recording, editing, and assigning --  strike a nice balance without going overboard or causing confusion. Making use of all three effectively could transform Screencastify into a cornerstone tool that drives everything from instruction to feedback to professional development to assessment in a classroom.

All of Screencastify's tools are intuitive, and clearly designed to be as such, and they're more reliable than some other competitors'. The editing tool in particular just flat out works in a way that other screencasting tools don't, and has useful extras like a blur tool for protecting privacy. The addition of the Submit feature makes it shockingly simple to have students create and send back screencasts. The big key will be striking the just-right balance in terms of premium features. 

Overall Rating
Engagement

The simple, functional design is better than competitors'. Extras like the Submit tool can expand how students can demonstrate knowledge.

Pedagogy

Learning can truly take off with a premium account, where students can record, edit, and submit longer screencasts. Basic accounts depend on implementation but offer frustration-free recording.

Support

There's a breadth of support and ideas for classroom integration available on the developer's site and social media, and via independently produced content.

Common Sense reviewer
Amy Lauren Botula Other
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Community Rating

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Featured review by
Hallie H. , Classroom teacher
Classroom teacher
Park School of Baltimore
Pikesville, United States
A great tool for self-paced learning!
I really like Screencastify and screencasts in general because, when used right, they allow students to personalize learning. Students can watch videos multiple times if they need to review, and they can pause videos when they need to take a minute. I like screencasts best when students can watch them and then ask me questions—sometimes I find that students will passively watch videos and not clarify something they don't understand. I don't like that Screencastify has limited their free videos to 5 m ...
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Data Safety
How safe is this product?
Users can interact with trusted users.
Personal information can be displayed publicly.
User-created content is not filtered for personal information before being made publicly visible.
Data Rights
What rights do I have to the data?
Users can create or upload content.
Processes to access or review user data are available.
Processes to modify data are available for authorized users.
Ads & Tracking
Are there advertisements or tracking?
Personal information is not shared for third-party marketing.
Traditional or contextual advertisements are not displayed.
Personalised advertising is not displayed.

Continue reading about this tool's privacy practices, including data collection, sharing, and security.

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