Kickstart your 2024 New Year’s resolutions

Top 5 New Year’s resolutions and how ScreenPal can help you achieve them

With the close of each year, the excitement of a new year full of endless possibilities is upon us. It’s the perfect time to reflect on the past year and set some goals for the New Year. Whether it’s personal or professional, we all make New Year’s resolutions to work towards something to improve ourselves. However, as the weeks go by, those resolutions often get forgotten. Have you ever felt this way? Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered.

We’ve compiled a list of the top 5 New Year’s resolutions people make every year. What’s more, we’re going to show you how ScreenPal can help you achieve them. ScreenPal can help you organize your digital content and achieve your goals faster. Keep reading to find out how!

Resolution #1: Get (your content) in shape

Many of us resolve to get in shape in the New Year. Although physical fitness is a great goal to have, you can also get your content in shape using ScreenPal.

How, you may ask? By using ScreenPal’s video and image hosting services. Here are a couple ways you can use ScreenPal hosting to get your content in shape.

• Create folders to organize your content. As you upload resources to screenpal.com, organize your videos and images in folders. You can easily share these folders to communicate and collaborate with your team.
  • As a prior World History teacher, I would organize my video lessons and annotated images into unit Folders (World Religions, Medieval history, Renaissance and Reformation, etc.) to easily access materials each semester. This would not only help my personal organization, but would also empower me to share my materials with my PLC (professional learning community) for quick and effective collaboration.
• Showcase your content in Channels. Group and share related content using our Channels feature. Choose a carousel or sidebar layout for each Channel.
  • I recommend using the Allow Users to Launch Recorder in Channel option in Channel Editing. This will enable users to record and submit uploads to your channel. Learners can respond to your video with a simple prompt such as, “Create a six-word summary explaining the main idea of this video.” Another favorite option of mine is to challenge learners to create a Tweet, Instagram caption, or Facebook post summarizing the information contained in the video.
  • Pro tip: Add branding to your Channel!
• Add call-to-action and annotation buttons to your video to guide your audience to take the next step.
  • Once you upload your video to screenpal.com, hover over the video thumbnail and click on Details. Click on the Interaction Tools tab to add call-to-action and annotation buttons to your video. This is a simple way to capture your audience’s info, link buttons to your website, or direct learners to reference materials and the next activity.
    • Call-to-action buttons ensure that your audience is engaged by requiring them to click on the button. You can even customize the color for your brand’s personality.
    • Annotation buttons provide relevant content while your video is playing. When your audience clicks on the button, the video automatically pauses so they can resume when they return to the video.

Resolution #2: Learn a new (ScreenPal) skill

Learning a new skill or hobby can be both challenging and rewarding. Whether it’s picking up a new language or learning how to paint, the new year is the perfect time to start. Challenge yourself to learn a new, advanced ScreenPal editing skill this year.

Try your hand at an advanced editing skill:

• Need to draw attention to a portion of an annotated map in your video? Try layering an arrow shape overlay above your map image overlay. This is similar to the concept of ‘bring image to front’ or ‘send image to back’ in document editing tools. Use drag and drop options to edit the order of overlay layering in your video project.
• Familiar with our text overlay editing feature but want to animate your text? It’s easy to create animated text for your videos! Open the editing window for your text overlay and click the In or Out Transition options and select your preference. Choose from bounce, fade, flip, fly, scale, and wipe options to transition your text overlay in and out of your video project.
• Blur moving areas of your screen with the Blur tool. You probably already know how to use the Blur tool to hide sensitive information in your video, but did you know that you can animate the Blur overlay to move with the object being blurred?
• Easily create moving animations with ScreenPal by using edit points to animate overlays. Use edit points to move an arrow from one part of your screen to another, or highlight different bullet points on your slide as you change topics.

Resolution #3: Manage your time efficiently

Time management is a crucial element for both personal and professional success. With ScreenPal, you can capture, edit, and share videos and images using one platform- allowing you to better manage and even gain back some precious time.

• Capture video and screenshots using our screen recorder. No account required, no watermark added- capture any area of your screen with microphone audio and add and resize video from your webcam.
• Take screenshots and edit images using our Image Editor. Capture still images of your screen and import images then crop, edit, resize, and annotate for context. Upload your images to ScreenPal to easily share a link. 
• Edit video projects using our free video editor. Create unlimited, watermark-free videos with a max recording time of 15 minutes. Easily edit your video anywhere, at any time, with our Video Editor desktop app. 
• Share your creations using our ScreenPal hosting site. Upload videos and images directly into the hosting platform from any of our apps. Organize your content into playlist channels by topic or course. Consider password-protecting your videos or restricting viewing to your team. Share your projects by custom links or place embed codes on your site. Customize and brand your video share pages (ad-free, of course!) on screenpal.com.

Resolution #4: Reduce stress with easier assessments

Stress is an unavoidable part of life, but reducing it can lead to a happier and healthier existence. Use our ScreenPal quizzing feature to increase video engagement, easily capture data analytics, and in-turn reduce stress.

• Create quizzes using ScreenPal video projects or uploaded videos: Easily embed questions in any of your video projects. Upload an edited video project to ScreenPal from our desktop app, or upload a saved video from your desktop to screenpal.com.
• Embed questions in your video project to increase engagement: Add multiple choice, true/false, short answer, poll, and rating questions to your video (don’t forget to prevent skipping!) to boost participation.
• Utilize ScreenPal’s video quiz analytics to inform instruction: View aggregated data on the Results Summary tab, and view personalized learner progress on the Individual Results tab. Use this data to easily inform instructional practices- pull small groups, provide individualized feedback, and address remediation and enrichment.

Resolution #5: Improve communication

Improve communication by using our Chrome Extension to include video anywhere you type. Here are a few ideas for improving communication with video:

• Give friendly feedback: Add video feedback to project management sites (Asana, Basecamp, Trello, and more) when collaborating asynchronously with colleagues. This will add personality and empathy to your message and ensure that nothing gets lost in translation- or miscommunicated via text.
• Share knowledge: Insert a video comment on a shared document or slide presentation to collaborate on a group project. Share your screen, webcam, or both in your video comment to illustrate your thoughts or findings to improve a shared task.
• Have more productive meetings: Is this another meeting that could have been an email? We take your email bet and raise you with a video! Why not respond to the group email thread with a video rather than scheduling another meeting. This will improve communication- and maybe even morale- by saving you and your colleagues precious time.

With ScreenPal, achieving your New Year’s resolutions doesn’t have to be an uphill battle. Whether it’s getting your content in shape, learning a new ScreenPal skill, managing time better, reducing stress with easier assessments, or improving communication, ScreenPal can help you every step of the way. As we embark on a new year full of potential and possibility, let ScreenPal be your trusty tool to help you conquer your goals and make this your best year yet!