For the Love of Screen Recording!

When iOS 11 opened up screen recording on the iPad I was excited at the possibilities of what this could mean for so many learners.  Using your voice to communicate your understanding can open a huge window for struggling writers.  And what about taking away the anxiety of standing in front of a room filled with an audience for you to share your knowledge about something that might not be your passion? I do not want any child to feel that way.  By using the power of recording the voice of a presentation combined with a visual learners are able to shine when sharing!

 My first time around with a group of learners to use screen recording on their iPad was pretty smooth.  Everyone was able to add the screen recording icon to their control center.  We had a few people who needed reminding to turn the microphone on while they were recording.  Rookie mistakes we all make.  The video clips played back well on their devices.  So, we uploaded videos to  Google Drive and a few to YouTube.  Then there was no audio.  What??

The videos plays fine on the iPad.  So, I tried importing the videos in to Quicktime to see if manipulating the video through another source would help.  Well, I think that helped one of the numerous videos I was working with at the time.  There did not seem to be any consistency as why some audio was working and the other audio was not.  At the time I had to "let it go" and move one with what was working.

Fast forward a few months and screen recording is coming back up again for a project I was working on myself.  I did what I thought I was supposed to do.  I made my screen recording.  I tried to share my video and the audio was gone!  The struggle!  At this point I reached out to my teammates, but no one else knew what was wrong.  The iOS was up to date.  I restarted the iPad.  All of my usual "tricks" to make something work were not helping me.  After a little research I discovered I was not the only person with this struggle.  Others were having the same issue.  It's not just me!

Through my searching I found out it was not me and there was no way to fix it, as of right now.  Hopefully, Apple will fix the issue in an update.  So the interim solution was to either purchase a pricey app or record the screencast again.  Personally, I knew I was not going to ask an entire school to purchase an app for something that should be fixed.  Instead, I tried screen recording my screen recording.  Yes.  I made the first screen recording.  Then I started another screen recording, opened Photos and played the video to record it all again.  When I played the 2nd recording back it sounded a little echoey and I was skeptical.  When I uploaded the video to Google Drive it sounded great!  I then tried uploading it to YouTube where the sound was exactly as it should be!  Success!!!

The next step was to work with a small group of learners to make sure it worked for others.  Then, why not let the learners lead their own classes on how to successfully screen record?  So that's what we did.  The learners presented to their peers.  They did a great job.  They experienced what it's like to lead instruction to restless learners who like to respond in their own special way!  I'm very proud of these learners.