It was 2002. I was a secondary teacher of Information Technology in Hatfield High School in Doncaster, the school I went to as a kid. I had a Computer Science degree, and I was being asked to teach our kids how to use PowerPoint. The first curriculum module was called ‘All About Me’.

Half of the kids were gleefully creating horrendously animated PowerPoints about themselves without much of my input, so I asked them how they knew how to do it all. They told me they had been using PowerPoint for about three years in Primary school. The other half of my kids looked bored out of their brains, and now I knew why.

No doubt, this is still the same in most or all subjects. Secondary schools need to learn from Primary schools and step up.

I decided I needed to step up, so instead of PowerPoint, I got my kids to create mindmaps using a piece of software called ‘inspiration’. While this was marginally less boring, I wanted to take it to the next level. Then I had an idea. If students could record their screen while talking, they could create a video of themselves narrating through their learning and showing their work at the same time.

And this could work all the way through all my teaching. Kids in all my classes were creating things on the computer, then creating screenshots and writing about it. They could just video the screen and narrate over it!

Brilliant I thought, so I started to scour the internet for the software to use. I remember thinking, “Great! This will only take me a few minutes and away we go…” - but I couldn’t find any. I searched and searched, and I found something that did it, but it created huge files, like massive! And to top it off, it was connected to my interactive whiteboard, and I couldn’t get it to work on another computer. The whiteboard was acting as the largest dongle in the world…

So I kept looking and searching. I couldn’t believe that no one had invented this simple piece of technology that would be so useful.

…and then I discovered this little website which looked a little homemade with a piece of software called ‘ScreenFlash’. It recorded the screen, but unlike the other software I found, it created much smaller files in Flash (some of you might remember Flash - it got killed off by Steve Jobs and the iPad). It was almost perfect.

I downloaded it, installed it on a test computer, bought a cheap headset microphone and tried it out on my students. They loved it and it was almost magical. My brain was bursting with possibilities.

So I sent ScreenFlash an email, telling my story, that I was a teacher in the UK, and I would like to use their software in school, but it would need a few modifications, and that maybe I could sell it to other schools if they could change it slightly.

To my surprise, I got a reply. He was from Beijing and called himself John (not his real name, his ‘English’ name). We started conversing and I told him what modifications were needed for it to work in UK schools. I asked him how much money he wanted to do this work, and he said he didn’t want any money, but if I sold ScreenFlash to other schools that we would split the profit 50/50. I thought, wow!

John made the modifications and I started using it in my classroom. It was amazing. A new IT qualification was coming out (DiDA) and I showed it to the exam board. I asked if they would consider accepting screen recordings instead of screenshots, and to my surprise, they said they ‘must’ accept it.

I showed some other schools and they loved it too, and agreed to buy site licences from me. I ended up sitting in my local bank branch in Thorne, Doncaster asking them how I could send over £5,000 to a guy I’ve never met from Beijing called John (not his real name). They kept asking me if I knew what I was doing and I told them that he had trusted me, so I am trusting him.

I got the money sent, and thankfully, John replied saying thanks and if I wanted more modifications to sell more.

This went on for a while until I had another idea which I couldn’t find on the internet, which turned into realsmart learning portfolios, which we created in Flash which Steve Jobs killed, then I went to Apple Park HQ and remembered all my work, so I recreated this work but with what I know now, making realsmart learning maps (which will be launching soon), because guess what… after 19 years, there is still nothing else out there that can do the job I want it to.

After a few years of ScreenFlash, a company brought out a piece of software called Jing. While it wasn’t as fully featured as ScreenFlash, it was faster and much more simple, and it was free. I saw the writing on the wall. I couldn’t sell ScreenFlash to schools when I would want to use Jing for free instead, so I failed faster and stopped selling it. I told John (not his real name) who understood and we exchanged nice emails about trust and making things happen and pics of our new baby boys and maybe I might get to China at some point (I never have).

He was a nice guy and I hope he and his family are happy. I don’t think he knows how significant a part his trust has played in my life journey and I don’t have a way to get in touch with him anymore.

Best wishes John! (not your real name)

By the way, if you want to record your screen with a narrative now, Loom.com is brilliant. Fast, simple, collaborative and creative and all cloud-based. And guess what? It’s free for teachers… knock yourself out!