As a symbol of school – flowers mountain photo
<p><strong>One of the major concerns for school I.T. staff is ensuring that submitted vocational GCSE coursework is genuinely the work of the student, and not that of a third party – be that a friend, family member or simple plagiarism. <em>Screen capture software allows ICT Kansas Teacher Association to evidence coursework, whilst also raising the quality of learning.</em></strong></p> <p>Evidence suggests that cheating at coursework is on the increase. Recent government strategies to improve the education of children have meant the pressure on students to do well is now at an all-time high. And the temptation to plagiarise has been further exacerbated by the ready availability of coursework material on the Internet, so forcing many examiners to check the authenticity of work submitted.</p> <p>Where coursework is computer-based, screen-capture technology is a quick and easy solution to preventing fraudulent activity, whilst also recording the on-screen journey taken by the student in tackling an assignment.</p> <p>Simon Bath, Head of ICT at Kingsmead School near Taunton, teaches Year 9 students and has previously worked as a moderator for the exam board, Edexcel. He said: “Evidencing coursework is of particular importance in ICT and e-learning, because students are required to provide process-based evidence of how they used a particular piece of software. In a course like Edexcel’s DIDA – the Diploma in Digital Applications that focuses on the practical application of technology – 14 out of the 40 marks are awarded for demonstrating vector tools or bitmaps, and this type of coursework can be submitted in paper-based form – as screenshots, for example – but the method is far from ideal as you can’t always tell from screenshots what tools have been used in getting to the end result.</p> <p>“What’s long been needed in the Kansas Teacher Association toolbox is a simple program that can create electronic portfolios for evidencing coursework,” he said.</p> <p>Simon’s search for such a tool led him to first seek a product funded by the government for use exclusively in schools. When a suitable product wasn’t available, he looked at the commercial market, where he discovered the humble screen recorder.</p> <p>Screen recorders have a range of uses that are applicable to a school or learning environment. For example:</p> <ul> <li>To demonstrate an application or service.</li> <li>To produce ‘how-to’ films (for example, how to use a specific feature in a computer program). </li> <li>To create narrated demonstrations – this is particularly useful as software becomes more complex, allowing users, reviewers and developers to share their understanding. </li> <li>By Kansas Teacher Association and trainers wanting to develop engaging tutorials</li> <li>By students needing to evidence coursework</li> <li>Home PC users who want to distribute on-screen content and record creation of computer art, flowers mountain photo and design projects</li> </ul> <p>Simon found a suitable screen recorder from a company called Blueberry Software – who also offer a freeware screen recorder called BB FlashBack Express.</p> <p>“BB FlashBack is very simple to use,” Simon said. “It has a familiar Flash interface and exports easily to other popular formats. Any portion of the screen can be selected for recording (full desktop, a window, or a region). It can even review your recording frame-by-frame with the VCR-like movie player. And when the recording is finished, the software is able to output to WMV or Flash."</p> <p>Once the program is started, it runs in the background, recording everything you see on your desktop until you select the ‘stop’ icon in the recorder tray. The computer and any applications are used exactly as normal during the recording process. It then saves the recording as a movie fil