After Flip’s shutdown, Screencastify CEO Vishal Shah talks support for educators with free Submit feature
In June, ETIH covered Microsoft’s decision to discontinue its popular Flip platform, leaving many educators seeking a suitable replacement. To support teachers impacted by this change, Screencastify—a video creation platform designed to simplify recording, editing, sharing, and assessment for K-12 educators—has made its “Submit” feature free for the 2024-2025 school year.
We recently spoke with Vishal Shah, CEO of Screencastify, about the platform’s commitment to educational innovation, why Submit is a great alternative to Flip, and how Screencastify is shaping the future of interactive learning in classrooms.
ETIH: Can you share the story behind the founding of Screencastify and what inspired you to focus on video creation tools for K-12 educators and students?
It’s actually a really neat story. Screencastify was created by a German inventor in 2014. He created a really simple workflow to create screen recording videos in the Chrome Browser, and it started being used naturally by teachers and in education overall as Chromebook usage in schools took off.
So much of the product’s growth was organic with almost no marketing. A couple years after it was invented, LearnCore, a company I was running at the time, needed a screen recording capability to help train and coach sales people and we partnered with Screencastify in order to do that.
About a year later, we invested in Screencastify and partnered to help grow the business when we saw how simple the product was, the potential and how the users loved Screencastify. We’ve been privileged to continue to build on that amazing technical foundation of the original product which is now an amazing brand in the education market.
ETIH: Why did Screencastify decide to make the “Submit” feature free for the 2024-25 school year?
Educators are faced with so many challenges and over the past few years have been tested to the extreme. All products take a different approach. Our goal is to step in and support the future of education and we saw an opportunity this year with Submit. After we saw the news break about Microsoft removing Flip’s standalone access and website outside of the Microsoft platform and the timing of that change right as the new school year was beginning for many educators, we realied that this might send a lot of people scrambling.
People who had relied on Flip for years in their classrooms could be needing something quick and easy to get them back on track and not have any added stressors as they got back into the classroom. So we thought the best thing we could do is step in for those teachers and provide Submit for free to educators for the 2024-2025 school year.
ETIH: What are the key differences between Submit and Flip, and why is Submit a good alternative to Flip?
For us, we focus on simplicity and usability. In Screencastify Submit, the student doesn’t need to install any software. Submit is super user friendly, allowing students to focus on content creation rather than figuring out how to use the tool itself. We are also integrated with Google to align with the way many of our schools' goals and infrastructure.
Flip is now only accessible within the Microsoft Suite where Submit integrates with Google Classroom and other platforms, facilitating easy management of assignments and feedback. Submit has the option to allow students to view other students' videos but it is also a way for teachers who want to evaluate individual student’s understanding without the added complexity of peer interactions. Also, we are further investing in Submit this year, gathering feedback and making it more valuable with different AI workflows and grading aids.
ETIH: Can you explain Screencastify's integrations with LMS platforms like Canvas, Schoology, and Google Classroom, and how this can support teachers?
These integrations give teachers access to their Screencastify video library without leaving their LMS. Depending on the platform, teachers can easily select and embed their videos in Canvas/Schoology assignments, announcements, discussions, pages, and quizzes for their students. The main benefits of these integrations are:
Teachers save time/streamline workflows with seamless integration: when tools are easily accessible in the LMS, teachers can focus more on creating great lessons and assignments rather than tracking down the right links to them.
Smoother student experience: students no longer needing to click any external links or navigate outside of the LMS to watch their teachers’ instructional videos, keeping students more engaged and focused when video is a seamless part of their assignment and a simpler overall experience.
Make Screencastify accessible wherever teachers are: these integrations ensure that Screencastify videos are easy-to-access from wherever teachers and students spend their time.
ETIH: What trends do you currently see shaping the edtech sector, and how is Screencastify adapting to these trends?
There’s a ton of really neat innovation in edtech across a variety of focus areas like accessibility, digital learning, ELL/ESL, professional development, and more, but I think the biggest trend that we’re seeing is what everyone else is talking about and reading about – the use and role of AI in education.
It’s becoming more and more ubiquitous as companies have added AI tools and features but there are still a ton of outstanding questions. What are the best use cases for it that are being replicated across edtech products and what is the value to educators and administrators from the use of AI?
For Screencastify, we’ve seen AI be an extremely powerful tool for things like our World Languages feature. Auto-translation into captions helps facilitate comprehension, accessibility, and inclusivity — and helps you communicate more effectively with everyone in your learning community. It's an easy way to boost comprehension and support students in acquiring skills in a second language. This is just one example, but it’s one way that we think AI can responsibly be used.
ETIH: How has the increased reliance on digital tools post-pandemic influenced Screencastify’s development and growth?
The pandemic really accelerated a shift that we were already seeing pre-pandemic of a solid growth rate in acquisition and adoption of digital tools in education. Once the pandemic hit, there was an immediate and great need for tools like Screencastify to help enable remote-first learning. We were really proud to be able to answer that call and deliver when educators needed us most. Post-pandemic has seen many districts take a fresh look at their digital toolkit and reassess their strategy, but we’ve seen Screencastify continue to play a critical role for teachers and districts.
We’ve really put an emphasis on continuing our core mission while delivering product upgrades and new features. Some of these include our AI-powered World Languages feature which translates and auto generated captions from user recorded videos to new Submit features like auto question generation to help teachers save time creating assignments.
ETIH: How does Screencastify maintain its focus on the needs of teachers and students while navigating the evolving demands of the technology sector?
We have made an intention to speak with and listen to as many people in education as possible. From district sitewide visits to teacher interviews most of our team has a pulse on the latest in education. In addition many of us are former teachers, have children, who are students today and parents. This direct line of sight makes us very involved with the latest in education.
ETIH: What is your long-term vision for Screencastify, and where do you hope to see the company in the next decade?
Bill Gates once said “Most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in ten years.”
The pace of change is at an all time high and Screencastify will be transforming and improving education. We will be an outcome focused solution where we focus on the result and will tailor suggestions based on each individual learner/consumer. Each person learns differently (visual vs. written, language preference, difficulty level, suggestions for remediation) and we will be able to personalize the content that drives the highest outcomes in the shortest period of time for each learner.
Teachers will be working on the highest impact items, spending time with their students on a 1 on 1 basis to motivate and coach them to excel and attentive to the soft skills and the emotional aspect for students. This is what teachers want to spend their time on yet the repetitive and administrative items are consuming them. Screencastify will elevate the role of a teacher all by being an easy to use solution.
Separately, we will give teachers more opportunities to help students beyond the walls of their classrooms and truly democratize education by matching them to students no matter where they are located.
ETIH: If you could host a dinner party with five key figures in the EdTech industry, who would they be and why?
This is a great question, and a pretty tough one to answer. I’m going to use the term EdTech in a pretty broad manner, here, but I would say Deborah Quazzo (Managing Partner of GSV Ventures) who has such a deep understanding of education innovation investing, Sal Khan (Founder of Khan Academy) for his broad insights on creating, running and scaling Khan Academy, Sam Altman, Elon Musk for their insights on the role and future use of AI in education, and Follett Carter who is an Adjunct Lecturer of Marketing at the Michigan Ross School of Business who my professor when I was in college who has impacted me to this day.
