Richard D. Solomon's Blog on Mentoring Jewish Students and Teachers: Introduction to Facebook as a web camera recording tool

Friday, June 24, 2011

Introduction to Facebook as a web camera recording tool

When mentoring our pre-service and in-service teachers we need to describe and model both research-based and clinically tested best practices, and demonstrate how these best practices can be applied in the real (i.e. physical) and virtual (i.e. online) classroom for both teaching and teacher training. The combination of face to face instruction in a physical setting and online learning is called blended learning. In this section of the blog we will describe how the internet can serve as a supplemental resource for instruction and the mentoring of pre-service and in-service Jewish educators. In this post we will discuss how Facebook can facilitate communication among teachers, students, parents, staff and the Jewish community around the globe through web camera recording.

Assumption: The teacher or mentor teacher has a interactive white board (i.e. SMART Board, Promethean, etc.), a Tablet PC (also called a Slate or Blade), a computer presenter or computer with internet access attached to an LCD projector in the classroom. It would be ideal if students or mentees had access to their own laptop computers or an Ipad as well.

Note: Although Facebook can be applied in the Judaic Studies blended learning classroom, it can be also be used for training pre-service and in-service Jewish educators for professional or staff development. It is our hope that Jewish educators around the globe will form an online community of practice, a CoP, a group of people who share an interest, a craft, and/or a profession, to enhance the delivery of instruction and training of Jewish educators. For example, here is a CoP you might want to join.

Note: Facebook can also be used in a face to face classroom.

Where is Facebook located on the web?

http://www.facebook.com/

Facebook for web camera recording

In a previous post we described Facebook as a multi-dimensional web-based application to facilitate communication among students, staff and the community. Click here to link to that post. In today’s post we will demonstrate how Facebook can also function as a web camera recording tool.

What is a web camera recording?

A web camera recording is a visual and auditory recording of oneself speaking to the camera on a computer or some other video recording device. Sometimes a picture or video conveys meaning better than words. Consequently, let me demonstrate what a web camera recording looks and sounds like.

Now a web camera recording is different from a screen recording or screen cast because with the web cam recording I am recording myself speaking to the camera, and not showing that which is on my computer screen. In other words if I were to do a screen recording you would not see me, instead you would see my computer screen displaying that which is on my screen like a website, a student assignment, or a procedure for using a web tool. However, I might be talking trying to explain what you see on my computer screen. With a web camera recording you only see me talking to you as I am doing right now. Hence, this is a demonstration of my doing a web camera recording using Facebook.

Shalom

Note: The script located above was the one I used for the web camera recording placed on my Facebook page.

Where is the location of the Facebook icon for making a web camera recording?

Click here and see the location of the icon for web camera recording on Facebook.

Now if you have the time, and the inclination, log into on my Facebook page and see my demonstration of how Facebook can be used for web camera recording.

Click on the links below and find tutorials on how to use the web camera recording tool on Facebook