I love Instagram, and I use it both personally and professionally. Below is a post from April when we were promoting our Spring Show, and it's a great way to reach a lot of people with a fun visual promoting an event. You could use Instagram in the same way to promote any event going on in your school, your library, or your community!
Flipagram/Vigo Video
I had never used Flipagram before, so I created one by downloading the free app to my iPhone. I decided to make a slideshow of one of our most recent events, Officer Camp, which is where I took a our leaders from our drill team to camp for 4 days. I enjoyed how easily I could create a fun, animated slideshow of moving pictures. I had a hard time moving the slides from place to place to switch up the order of the slideshow, so I need to figure out my user error there. It was also extremely slow for me, I only uploaded about 10 pictures to create my slideshow with, and it took forever for it to "prepare" the data and create the slideshow. I'm not sure if it was slow because of my memory space, or the app itself, but I had great service at the time and it was pretty frustrating to have to wait so long for it to create the product.
Then, I realized that the Flipagram I had downloaded was not a public/social media platform. I continued to look in the app store and I had a hard time deciphering which app was the correct one, as it seems Flipagram and Vigo Video are one in the same (?). I tried Flipagram (with the movie reel and coffee cup icon), and it didn't seem to be conducive to public social media, so then I downloaded Vigo Video.
I easily created an account through Google for Vigo Video. I actually used the video I created in Flipagram to upload to my Vigo Video: Officer Camp 2018
Here is my profile, feel free to follow me @taliaalyssa11
To be honest, this was my least favorite of the three and I couldn't really even imagine how I would use this in an educational way. Even adding hashtags was difficult, as it seemed to only allow me to add one at a time? This was just a confusing platform for me all around. I don't really see myself using it.
Screencast-O-Matic
I am familiar with Screencast but I had never used it myself, and it's definitely something that takes practice! My presentation was a little choppy and rusty, and if I were to use it to actually present something real, I would need some practice. It was easy to create an account, watch the tutorial, and start recording. Here was my attempt at introducing Prezi using a screencast:
Overall Recommendation
I think it's super important to be familiar with Screencasts for educational and teaching purposes, but overall I feel that Instagram is the best choice for many reasons. It's extremely user-friendly, popular, and easy to upload both pictures and videos to. The kids use it constantly so it's the most visible for them. Depending on what you need, though, Screencast-O-Matic or Instagram may be your best option. I am not a fan of flipagram and I still can't really understand what it's useful for. It seems dated and unpopular as well.
I'm so glad you shared your Instagram on this blog post so that we could connect through social media! I can definitely see how this would be a useful way to share happenings with your dance team. This will easily transfer over into the library with you once you step into your new role since you are already used to showcasing students.
ReplyDeleteI also found Screencastomatic to be a useful tool. I have previously used Screencastify, and I see a ton of instructional benefit for both students and teachers for being able to make screencast recordings such as this.