January 2024 Community Newsletter

👋 Hi, ScreenPals!

We can’t wait to share all the great ways you can make 2024 your best [ScreenPal] year yet! And we’re anticipating even more engagement than ever. 😉

Keep reading for:

• Next Friday: Hosting webinar!
• ScreenPal year in review
• Resources for educators
• Community inspiration
• New year, new skills (and ideas!)
• Upcoming events
• Call for proposals

Next Friday: Hosting webinar!

We are thrilled for our upcoming ScreenPal Hosting webinar.

Join the ScreenPal team for a walk-through of our secure video and image hosting platform. We will showcase everything you can do for free (a great price point 😉) which includes uploading, organizing, and sharing unlimited videos and images. 

We’ll also demo our premium hosting features, including call-to-action buttons, customizing your video player, and gaining insights from advanced video analytics.

📆 Date: Friday, January 19, 2024

⏰ Time: 3 PM ET / 12 PM PT

🌏 Where: Zoom webinar

This webinar will be recorded. If you can’t join us live, please register anyway and we will share the recording with you.

💡 Pro-tip: Bookmark our webinar landing page to explore upcoming live events and watch on-demand webinars to help you create and share great content with ScreenPal.

ScreenPal year in review

We achieved so much in 2023, and can’t wait to see what 2024 holds for our ScreenPal community. From introducing the new ScreenPal brand to continuous improvements to our video quizzing features; from rolling out our new Chrome extension to our new LTI 1.3 app, we’ve made many improvements to ScreenPal all thanks to your input.

Stay tuned for an exciting 2024, including grade book sync for video quizzes!

Resources for educators

Get the most out of ScreenPal by bookmarking our resources for educators page. Use this page to explore certifications, watch on-demand webinars, and find inspiration from our blog. A few of our favorite resources include:

• Level 1 certification: watch and complete 4 micro-credential (20 minutes or less) videos to complete this certification course. When completed, you will receive a certificate and your Level 1 badge via email.
• ScreenPal Quizzing on-demand webinar: Find out how to add questions, polls, and ratings in our free, live webinar on ScreenPal Quizzing. Take the feedback survey at the end of the recording to snag your Level 2 Quizzing badge.
• Blended Instruction certification: expand your knowledge and learn how to use ScreenPal’s video creation tools for blended instruction in this certification created in collaboration with Modern Classrooms Project.

Community inspiration

We love sharing the voices of ScreenPal users like you on our blog! If you’d like to write a blog post spotlighting how you use ScreenPal, please email sarah@screenpal.com to be a featured writer.

• Did you know that 64% of people give up their New Year’s Resolution by the end of January? Don’t end up part of this statistic- learn how ScreenPal can help you kickstart your 2024 New Year’s resolutions.
• If you’re just starting your ScreenPal journey, but feeling a little overwhelmed, check out this guide to stress-free creation from our EdTech Nerds friend Destiny Wagner. 
• After you’ve signed up for this month’s Hosting webinar, check out this blog post from the ScreenPal team filled with essential hosting and video management tips.

As always, you can read more on our blog!

New year, new skills (and ideas!)

Although health-related resolutions seem to top the charts in the United States, almost 10% of Americans still list trying a new skill as a goal for 2024. If one of your goals this year is to try a new skill, why don’t you try a new ScreenPal skill?  

Some ideas categorized by content area:

• CTE: As a former robotics coach, I often recorded my screen while programming for my students to reference later. Turn the students into teachers and ask them to record their own screens. Compile these videos into a Channel and- voila- the perfect playlist to prep for your upcoming robotics competition!
• English/language arts: Use ScreenPal as your virtual assistant for scaffolded silent reading. Record your own video pre-teaching vocabulary, providing a plot overview, and introducing a KWL activity. Share this video with students through your LMS and pause for whole-class discussion before allotting time for silent reading. This will empower your students to read challenging texts on their own!
• Foreign language: Speech-to-text closed captions. Need I say more? Automatically generate speech-to-text closed captions for your video project. Your students can see and hear the foreign language. 
• Math: Using your smartboard, screen-record yourself solving a math problem incorrectly. When sharing your video from the ScreenPal hosting site (screenpal.com), select Allow Viewers to Comment under Video Details. Ask students to analyze your errors by responding in a video comment on your video.
• Music & arts: I was a proud member of the Wind Ensemble, Symphony, and Chamber Choir my senior year of high school. As a student who participated in many playing and singing tests, let me introduce you to our webcam recorder. Ask students to record their playing or singing test using their webcam. As students complete more musical assessments, ask them to create a Channel to house their recordings. This Channel serves as a musical portfolio to exemplify their growth as a musician throughout the school year. 
• Physical education: Have you ever played Deal or No Deal in your PE class? Let’s level it up. Record your Deal or No Deal video using ScreenPal. Pop your video into an interactive quiz. Instead of physical notecards, embed poll questions where students choose the physical activity they want to complete. Student choice and asynchronous PE instruction? Who would’ve thought!
• Science: I’m going to say this louder for the people in the back: virtual 👏 lab 👏 reports. Create a presentation template for a lab report. Dedicate a slide to each section of the lab report. Allow students to record their findings during their experiment. To compile their virtual lab report, ask students to create a Story using our video editor. They can import their slide presentation directly from Google Slides or as a PDF, and add video evidence between each written slide. The storyboard will be one complete video project- i.e. lab report- which can be uploaded to ScreenPal, or submitted through your LMS.
• Social studies: Try using our Stories feature to compile multiple forms of media into one cohesive presentation. Once you create your storyboard, add segments of video or images and then add music from our stock music collection to create a Ken Burns-level video for your students. Better yet- have your students emulate Ken Burns and create their own Stories! These Stories are the perfect addition to a Gallery Walk.

Upcoming events

🚗 Our ScreenPal team can’t wait to get on the road again in a few short weeks! Make sure you visit our booth to 🤝chat with us, grab some swag 📒, and hear about ScreenPal updates and best practices.

• FETC- Orlando, FL- Jan 23-26- Booth #2449
• TCEA- Austin, TX- Feb 3-7- Booth #1942
• SpringCUE- Palm Springs, CA- Mar 21-23- Booth #314

Call for proposals

🙋Interested in sharing ScreenPal at an EdTech event near you?

• Learning Forward Annual Conference- December 8-11, 2024- Aurora, CO- proposals due Jan 31
• Innovative Schools Summit- June 21-23, 2024- Nashville, TN- proposals due Feb 2
• CFISD Digital Learning Conference- July 31- August 1, 2024- Virtual- proposals due Feb 23

Please fill out this survey for more information. A member of the ScreenPal community team will get in touch with you ASAP!

As always, thanks for reading, ScreenPals!

💙 Sarah, Community Engagement Coordinator