If you are in the final stages of your ITGS internal assessment project, one of the things you will need to create is a screencast. The screencast gives students a chance to demonstrate their product to the examiner (including parts which may not be obvious) and is now a requirement in criterion G of the internal assessment.
Creating the ITGS project screencast gives advice on what should and should not be included in the screencast. This posts contains examples of good screencasts which ITGS teachers and students have posted on YouTube over the years. Note that not all of them follow every single requirement (several are over 5 minutes, for example), but in general they are good examples which clearly highlight the work that was done and explain where and how techniques were used.
Example 1 – Website project screencast
This screencast for a very professional looking website is clearly presented and it is obvious that the student is confident in their knowledge and understanding of web design. The student clearly refers to 960 grid system for web page layout (showing he has read about good web design techniques) and he refers to his client’s requirements during the discussion too. From the video and the explanation it is very clear how the page was laid out using CSS and how the interactive buttons were created using Flash and rollover events. By flicking between the code view (which isn’t strictly necessary) and the final page, the results of all that hard work can be seen.
Example 2 – Database project screencast
In this screencast the student does a good job of demonstrating the functionality of his database’s frontend, highlighting how the forms work and linking that to the complex technique of having a consistent look and feel across the database. Databases can hide a lot of functionality, but this screencast clearly shows that lots of work has been put into creating the validation rules, relationships, and query criteria.
Example 3 – Programming project screencast
Websites in particular seem to be very popular choices for ITGS projects. However, students are free to use almost any tools they deem appropriate for their project – including writing their own programs. This would probably only be a feasible option for students with programming experience, of course. In this screencast the student demonstrates a Java program which is backed by a MySQL database. The project screencast does a job of demonstrating the program’s features and showing the changes to the underlying database. A problem with the screencast is that at over 13 minutes, it is much longer than the IB’s 5 minute screencast limit.
Example 4 – Video project screencast
I haven’t seen many students create video projects, but they do come up sometimes. The normal advice for creating a screencast is to show the final product rather than the software used to create it. However, in the case of videos it is hard to see how students could do this (a video of a video playing?). In this screencast the student does a great job of explaining the individual steps he took in the software to create the effects, colour changes, sound, and so on. He doesn’t focus as much as he could on the complex techniques, but the screencast still shows that a lot of hard work went into the creation of the project.
Example 5 – Video project screencast
This is another screencast about the creation of a video project. What I like about this screencast is that the student starts straight away with a list of the advanced techniques which he has used. This makes it clear that he is going to be very focused. Every time he explains a technique he gives a reason – usually referring to the client’s requirements or a more general requirement that is good practice in the area of video editing. It is worth noting that the video is over the 5 minute limit though.
Example 6 – Website project screencast
This student really takes advantage of the video to highlight things that cannot be seen on static screenshots – for example, the rollover button effects, the interactive Google map, and the page title, which always links back to the homepage. Rather than showing the HTML and CSS code, this student shows the website and highlights key features as he talks about how he implemented them. This is a really good technique which makes it clear that he understands web design and created everything himself.
Other ITGS screencasts
Websites seem to be by far the most popular choice of product for ITGS internal assessment projects (perhaps because the only complete example provided by the IB is the Keith Findlater website), and it can be quite hard to find good examples of projects and screencasts for other types of ITGS project. If you know of any that are online, please do leave a link in the comments below.
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