Recording screencasts on your iPad

If you search through archived posts on this blog, or the Tools for Teaching section, you’ll find plenty of advice on using screen recording applications on PC and Mac such as Camtasia Studio or the Personal Capture variant of ReVIEW / Echo 360. But what if you use an iPad as your main device, as many people now do especially at home or on the move?

Screen recording options for the iPad are actually surprisingly limited. The Digital Inspiration tech blog has a very helpful recent post at http://www.labnol.org/software/record-screencasts-on-ipad-iphone/20958/ , which concludes that the best option is to use the Reflection app to mirror your iPad (or iPhone) on a Mac computer. However, this isn’t an option if (a) you don’t have a Mac or (b) if you want to create your recordings when you’re away from your desk, eg when travelling.

Dr Mark Jepson, a Lecturer in the Department of Materials, recommends the Explain Everything app which is listed in the Digital Inspirations blog post. He comments: It allows you to import a PowerPoint presentation, annotate the page, record voice at the same time and then save the entire thing as a video. The video can then be uploaded to Learn or distributed to the students. So if you’re currently using Camtasia or a similar PC / Mac application for this purpose, but working on your iPad would be more convenient for you, Explain Everything is worth a look.