How to record a video of your android screen to create a video tutorial

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How to record a video of your android screen to create a video tutorial

In this post, I'd like to share an app that I discovered this week that enables you to record the screen of your android phone in order to create quick and simple tutorial videos for your students.

In general, it's easier to follow instructions combined with a visual demonstration, especially when it comes to using technology. I often recommend apps and websites to my students to enhance their learning experience, but some students find the process of using a new digital tool overwhelming.  Over the last few weeks and blog posts, I have created a number of free downloadable lesson plans with materials that use the Woodpecker app. The need to describe in words, how to use the different functions for the different parts of the lessons and adding screenshots and written instructions to every lesson plan has made these lessons rather cumbersome.  

In the past, I have used the free version of Screencast-O-Matic to make screencasts or digital recordings of my PC's screen, but I had never tried with my phone.  Woodpecker is an app and doesn't have a Window's version. Therefore, I decided to do some research and discover whether it is possible to do the same thing with my phone.

I downloaded a number of different apps and tried them out, the first two were almost identical Capture Recorder and Screen Recorder. They both appeared to be easy to use, but I was unable to find a way to visually show where I was touching on the screen in the video, so I installed a third app DU Recorder.  I found this the easiest app to use and it has an option to use a brush to underline or draw an arrow to point to the function or word on the screen that you are referring to in the tutorial.  Here's a quick video I made to demonstrate how to use the app: 

And here is my first attempt of a video tutorial to demonstrate how to choose and use a dictionary in the Woodpecker app:

Conclusion

This is an extremely user-friendly application and I hope to make many more tutorials like this for my students.  The only problem that I have discovered with creating these recorded tutorials is that each video currently involves numerous takes. In future, I'll try to find the quietest time of day to record, put my dog in another room, switch my phone to silent mode and make a detailed plan including a script before starting to record.



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