Loom is a screencasting tool that can be used within education. Users download the extension onto their Chrome browser and are able to simultaneously record their computer screen and themselves with their camera. The extension can be used on Mac and Windows computers, is free to use, and can be exported and shared in a variety of accessible ways. Sign-up is not required to view the videos, and they can also be password protected and made available to view for certain email addresses.
Here are three examples that I have ranked of how Loom can be used in the secondary school classroom.
1. Using Loom to connect students to a global network
Students can use this tool to create their own screen recordings, share their ideas, and communicate with others. It empowers them to take responsibility for their learning and provides them the opportunity to lead discussions on topics that they are passionate about. Students can become global collaborators by sharing their screen recordings with the online community through social media, YouTube, and other platforms. This would be one way of connecting to global partners outside of the classroom, which is one of my main goals in rebuilding the music program at my school.
2. Providing accessible feedback through an online or hybrid platform
Loom can be used to create personalized feedback on student work. This may be beneficial for ELL students where there is a language barrier, and written feedback is not always the most effective way to communicate next steps (Morris, 2021). A teacher could use Loom to revisit lesson content and particular areas that the student may be struggling in. This screencasting tool has three recording options, just your face, just your screen, or both. The teacher can use any of these options or a combination of them, depending on the type of feedback they are providing. However, I acknowledge that this method can be time-consuming for the teacher to make, and may be a once-in-a-while method of communicating feedback.
3. Empowering learners to be a creative communicator in a flipped classroom setting
While a flipped classroom setting would not work well in my current professional context, I believe it is still worth noting. The flipped classroom is a 21st century, student-centered learning model that can accommodate and provide flexibility to the learning process. It encourages active learning approaches. Students engage with pre-studied lesson content using higher-order intellectual skills such as; analyzing, synthesizing, and evaluation. By doing this, low-level or surface learning can occur outside of the classroom, leaving high-level deeper learning to be achieved inside the classroom (Johnston & Karafotias, 2016). When a teacher uses Loom to post lesson content to an online classroom space, students can work at their own pace from home. They can pause, review, and digest learning material using diverse learning styles that are unique to them. From a student perspective, students can then “record their problem-solving process to share with peers and teachers for feedback” (Ng et al., 2019).
References
Johnston, N., & Karafotias, T. (2016). Flipping the classroom to meet the diverse learning needs of Library and Information Studies (LIS) students. Journal of Education for Library and Information Science Online, 57(3), 223–238. https://doi.org/10.12783/issn.2328-2967/57/3/1
Morris, K. (2021, January 1). Loom: Bring learning alive with screencasting in the classroom. Kathleen Morris Blog Primary Tech | Helping teachers create digitally literate global learners. https://www.kathleenamorris.com/2019/04/10/loom-screencast/
Ng, E., Wang, I., & Volpe-Knock, T. (2018). Online tools for teaching & learning. Online Tools for Teaching Learning. https://blogs.umass.edu/onlinetools/learner-centered-tools/loom/
Port Perry, August 2022
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