Many faculty use Screencast-O-Matic, provided through our Canisius College license. It’s an easy-to-use video recorder and editor with a few more features than Panopto’s (also excellent) onboard video tools.

With the new version of their app, Screencast-O-Matic has changed its name to ScreenPal. It looks a little different but indicate that this will have little effect on users. In COLI, we think the new app looks pretty slick and perhaps easier to use, but we haven’t yet had time to explore what new features may be available.

Alternatively, you might be a good time to experiment with Panopto’s onboard recorder, if you have not done so. We acquired Panopto after Screencast-O-Matic, and for many faculty who make few or no edits to their videos, it’s much faster than using a separate app to record and edit videos that are going in front of your students via D2L-Panopto, anyway.

However, if you stick with ScreenPal, you will need to install their new app, and this cannot be done through their old app. Instead, go to the Canisius College ScreenPal page. There, you can use the recorder through the web browser, but if you want to use the separate app (as we do), click “What if I can’t work in the browser?”:

The link you need is not well highlighted. But it’s under “Download the Full App Install:”

Thereafter, click through to download the .exe installer.

Open that, and it will overwrite your old Screencast-O-Matic app with the fresh app. We found we didn’t need to enter the Canisius Screencast-O-Matic activator code, but if you need to, email helpdesk@canisius.edu for that code.