Today we had the opportunity to have Rich McCue come in again and help teach the class along with his intern student. He had a small little workshop for our class planned and it worked out really well. He went over 3 really impressive applications on a desktop that could be used as multimodal resources in classrooms. The first application he went over was iMovie which is used for editing videos and creating slideshows. I recently just had the chance to work with this app for another class, EDCI 352, where we learn about multimodal pedagogies. One of the assignments asked us to make a short 90 second clip introducing ourselves and this was made possible by iMovie. Although I had a brief understanding about this app, Rich was able to show me useful features that existed beyond my expertise.

The second app we learned about was Audacity which is an audio editing application meant to make podcasts. Although I listen to many podcasts, I’m not fond of making any myself and do not know the procedure behind it. It was really interesting to discover all the methods this application can be used for including strictly recording your voice and later using that for a voice over clip.

The last app we had a chance to explore was Screencastify which might be one of the most useful applications I have ever came across for teaching. This app is used as a plug in for google chrome browser and is used for voicing yourself over a screen recording. Rich was able to expand on the all the apps different features and its limitations for free usage. I can totally picture myself using this app for lessons in biology as it would serve as a wonderful tool to help students when they can’t make it to classes. This app would allow me to explain the concepts of the course while being shown with audio and video. For students that are struggling, I can work at home after school and answer any questions they have by screencasting my work over my laptop and emailing it to them.