Those new features include trimming videos, exporting videos in three formats (MP4, MP3, GIF), and additional sharing features.
In addition to removing limitations from the free plan Screencastify added new features to the free plan. The only limitation now is individual videos must be under five minutes long. Furthermore, the requirement of having a watermark on the videos you make with the free plan has been removed. Last week Screencastify announced that the limitation on the number of videos you can make in month has been removed from the free plan. As of last week those limitations are gone! Those included a monthly limit on the number of videos you could make and placing a watermark on all videos. As great as it was Screencastify wasn't without limitations.
In fact, last fall I helped eighth grade students use Screencastify in conjunction with Brush Ninja on their Chromebooks to make simple animated videos. A large part of its popularity comes from being easy to use on Chromebooks. Screencastify is a tremendously popular screencast recording tool.
Both of those audio improvements can lead to students viewing instructional videos for a bit longer or at least make paying attention a little bit easier. Adding background music can also have the effect of covering up some of the "ums" and "uhs" that we sometimes make when recording a video.
In the following short video I demonstrate how to add background music to your Screencastify videos.Īdding some background music to a video can help reduce some of the echo or tinny sounds that sometimes occur in screencasts that are recorded without an external microphone. To add background music to a video that you created with Screencastify all that you need to do is upload the video to YouTube then use YouTube's built-in editor and library of free music. Those methods are fine, but there is an easier way. There are a few ways that you can add audio to videos that you make with Screencastify including uploading your video to WeVideo or iMovie then adding a background track. A related question that I got from a reader was about how to add background music to Screencastify videos. Last week I published an article about how to extract the audio from your videos. By the way, Loom also offers a free iPad app.īack in March I published complete overviews of Screencast-o-matic and Loom. And Loom is free to use in your web browser. Loom defaults to a circle shape for your webcam view. Loom is a screencasting tool that also lets you overlay your webcam view onto your screencast video. Screencast-o-matic also provides the option to have a highlighted circle follow your mouse pointer on your screen ( Screencastify offers the same option).
One of those cropping options is to use an oval. With that version comes the option to crop and resize the webcam view that you can overlay on your screencast. The deluxe version is the paid version that costs $1.65/month. I use the "deluxe" version of Screencast-o-matic to make nearly all of the videos that appear on my YouTube channel. The comments have all been along the lines of "I like that" and "how did you do that?"
A bunch of times this week I've received emails and Facebook comments about the oval shape that I have started using when overlaying my webcam on my screencast videos.