Assignment Five:  Camtasia

C)  Create a lesson that incorporates Camtasia

*****  12 of the attachments were created with Camtasia

D)  Write a position paper on integrating Camtasia into your teaching.

          Finding effective ways to help students learn difficult concepts is the goal of many educators.  In the area of mathematics, educators are trying to use technology to help students learn mathematical concepts.  One program that helps teach mathematical concepts is Camtasia.  Camtasia allows lessons to be recorded and displayed with interesting features for students to view with or without the instructor present.  Camtasia will improve my teaching because it will allow students to review outside of class, students who are unable to attend class for unforeseen reasons, and be a great tool for distance learning courses.

            Camtasia will help my teaching because I can record various lessons with my voice narrating the lessons. The lessons can be placed on my web page for students to access easily.  This will be an enormous help because sometimes students do not understand the lesson the first time and need time to process the information.  After a lesson the students can go to the web page and watch the lesson taught the same way I taught it in the class.  The review is a great help to students.  The students can watch the lessons over and over if needed.  Having this option, the students will not take as much class time away for review.  The students can also review the lessons before a test or while they are doing their homework. I have my students take notes, but the notes can not talk to them and explain the examples like a lesson created with Camtasia. Mathematics is something that needs to be practiced and reviewed.  Camtasia allows students to review the material anytime and anywhere.  I do not want students calling me at 3 am asking me to teach a lesson again.

            Another benefit of creating lessons on Camtasia is if a student is unable to attend class for unforeseen reason they do not have to worry about falling behind.  The lessons will be available for use on the internet.  The student will be prepared the next and not fall behind.  Many students who miss class try to return, but the amount of material missed becomes a gigantic hurtle for them to jump, so they drop the course.  Creating lessons on Camtasia and providing them on line will help students stay in the course.

            Finally, lessons created on Camtasia will be a valuable asset in creating a course that is mainly online.  I have not created a course for online use only and one concern I had was how would the students learn just be reading the words on a screen and seeing examples.  I feel many students in my course learn through the verbal explanation of the material.  Lesson created on Camtasia allow the students to hear me explaining the material rather than just reading how to solve a problem.  I am more willing to creating an on line course after learning how to use Camtasia.

            In conclusion, I feel that Camtasia is a great tool for students to learn mathematics.  A main feature is I can create lesson with my voice explaining the material and place the lesson on line for use by all students.  I feel that students are advanced with using the computer and have words written on the web page is not enough.  The students are coming to expect more interaction and at least to hear the voice of the instructor explaining the material.  Camtasia is great for allowing students to review the material for comprehension, giving resource for students to use if they miss class, and make an on line course come alive.  Camtasia is a wonderful program to make math lessons that can be available easily to students anytime they need them.