Without a doubt one of the consequences of working and learning from home was an increase in confidence with video meetings on our devices!  In our schools most teachers checked in on student groups using Microsoft Teams or Zoom and video helped us to connect.

But in the wake of that period many teachers and trainers are looking to record their teaching sessions rather than do everything “live”. Maybe in an attempt to have more control over the video technically, or to make it more engaging with overlays and zooms and arrows pointing at things!

So what is an easy way to record your screen and jazz it up without too much fuss?  Our school district uses two main screen recording tools so I thought I’d compare them here.

Before going deeper and showing the comparison table for the two recorders, after comparing both Screencastify and Screencast-O-Matic my favoured tool is Screencast-O-Matic by far. Here’s why I like it more than Screencastify.

I teach educators how to use digital technologies – software and hardware – mainly Productivity and Collaborative digital tools. Primarily everything in Office 365 and GSuite on all devices – iPhone, iPad, android, Windows, Chromebook and Mac computers.

So off the bat I need to record the screens on all those devices. Screencast-O-Matic can be installed on any of those devices and used to capture the screen. Screencastify can only be installed in the Chrome or Edge web browsers on a computer. So for my purposes Screencast-O-Matic is the best choice.

Here’s some comments on the two products

• Price – the Screencast-O-Matic app is nearly half the price of Chrome Plugin Screencastify
• Screencastify is more limited in features than Screencast-O-Matic and comes in at over double the price.
• Screencast-o-Matic allows me to save recordings anywhere. You can save Screencastify video to Google Drive or your device but they are deleted form your computer if you remove the browser plugin
• Screencast-O-Matic’s editing tool has many more features than Screencastify

Here’s a comparison chart Screencastify and Screencast-O-Matic