So here is another example of the ways in which teachers can be more imaginative with their curriculum and students can get an opportunity to teach. Mathcasts.org (now moved to Math247.jot.com) is a wiki that is collecting examples of student produced screencasts about math related topics. Most of these are done with a graphics tablet, but I would think that as screen capture programs become more and more accessible, there might be all sorts of variations on this theme. (Especially, of course, if you have a Tablet PC.)

The thing I like the most here is the opportunity to engage our students by not only asking them to show what they know by testing it but by teaching it. I really believe that is a transformative shift that finally allows us to stop being the sole audience our kids work for. I always tried to find authentic audiences for my students’ work when I was in the classroom, to move the motivation away from the grade and instead to the audience feedback and reaction. We can do this so much more easily now.

Ever heard of Mathcasts? I had not, at least, not until yesterday! Then I read time about this phenomenon for the first time on the TechSmith site. Mathcasts are screencasts in which a math problem is explained. Online explanations about all kinds of mathematical problems, such as solving linear relationships,probability, and trigonometry are possible.

I do not think that this type of screencast can replace the educator, but I find it clever to offer this material online. It seems to me that it is particularly useful for reviewing explanations, which have been forgotten. Of course, this is possible with written notes, but frequently this works only for visually-oriented students and this seems to me to a significant improvement over textbooks or the students own notes.

The mathcasts have been neatly classified in the library, both by level and by subject. And it is wiki, which means that anyone who themselves make mathcasts, can add them here. An easy way to collect online material!