Favorite Ways to Use GIFs with Coaches

Being a geeky, techy educator, I absolutely love GIFs. They are so entertaining, but at the same time, they can be a valuable learning tool. For teachers and coaches, GIFs can jumpstart learning for those we serve. Check out some of my ideas for using GIFs as a coach.

As a connected educator, I have learned much be simply "YouTubing" how to do something. For people like me, this is great, but others, this may not be the best way. One of my go-to's for coaching is screencasting. I screencast a how-to video, put it on YouTube and send a link to teachers. Some teachers, though, prefer a more concise resource. This is where GIFs come in handy. Instead having to watch an entire video, GIFs can quickly get right to the point and they repeat in a loop.

Screencastify
As mentioned earlier, I screencast how-to videos. To this end, the Screencastify Chrome Extension is my go-to tool. The paid version of Screencastify allows you to download your screencasts as an animated GIF. When I screencast short, concise skills, instead of publishing to YouTube, I download the screencast as a GIF and embed into emails, blogposts and slide decks. Take a look below to see how.

GIFit!

I am a big proponent of working smarter, not harder. We don't always have time to create our own screencasts. YouTube is full of already-made screencasts of many of the skills teachers need help with. If this is the case, the GIFit! Chrome Extension can help you make GIFs from targeted parts of YouTube videos that contain skills you want to share. Simply add this extension to Chrome and a GIFit! button will soon appear on YouTube videos. When I use GIFit!, I make it a point to always include a link to the entire video to give credit to the video creator. Take a look below to see how.