by Steve Woods, Instructional Technology Specialist
Since the Pandemic began, I'm sure that you have learned about a variety of methods to record your screen, to perform a virtual book reading, provide technology tutorials, or communicate with your learning community. If you'd like to branch out your screen recording repertoire, you might want to give Loom a glance.
Loom is a free resource that allows you to record all or part of your screen, while adding you and your voice while presenting. Loom's interface is minimal and easy to use, allowing you to choose what you want to record (just your screen, a portion of your screen, and even your face). You can pause during recordings, and then start right back up when ready.
You can choose to keep your Loom recordings online, or download them to your machine, which is our preferred method, as there are storage limits on Loom.com. Upgrades will allow you to have a highlighter follow your cursor when clicked, as well as a do-not-disturb feature which turns off bothersome screen notifications during recording.
Looms can be shared directly from their website via hyperlink, Gmail, Facebook or Twitter, while downloaded recordings can be put into Google Drive or YouTube for further sharing.
To download the free Loom application, visit the educator's version at https://www.loom.com/education and click Get Loom for Free. Create your free account using your school email account, then visit the link again, and click to verify you are an educator. You'll be asked to input the email address you utilized to create the account, the name of your campus, and your school's website. Loom may take up to a week to verify your campus account, after which your account will indicate you have a free educator's level account. Educators receive additional storage space on the Loom servers for recordings you wish to keep online.
Please note that a verified educator's account is not necessary to use Loom, and there are ways to bypass their online storage limits, as listed in our Google Slides presentation on Loom.