As the technology integration teacher, technology liaison, and head of the technology committee at my school, I find myself constantly creating tutorials for teachers on setting up email, printing to the OCE, creating graphs in Excel, etc. I usually use screenshots inserted into a Word document along with text for teachers to print and follow. Many teachers love these tutorials but some other teachers have said they would do better if they could see and hear directions instead.
I heard about the filesharing technology called Jing from a fellow technology liaison and decided to check it out. It is a free program that can be download by both Windows and Mac users. It allows the user to create screenshots of the computer screen as well as video of the onscreen actions with audio recordings. The program then creates a link to the screencast to be viewed by others.
A great tutorial I found all about Jing can be found on the TeacherLink site by clicking here.
I thought Jing might be a great tool to use with staff at my school for computer questions that come up year after year. If this works well with teachers, I am hoping to use it with my students. This seems like it would be great for use with students that come late to class and miss the demonstration or for students that need directions broken down step-by-step and repeated.
Below is the link to my first screencast I created for teachers:
Setting up Microsoft Outlook for the first time
There are many other filesharing sites that I am hoping to check out in the next week. A helpful blog I am using to decide which software to investigate further is ProCasts. This blog walks you through all types of topics related to screencasting such as choosing your software, how to export screencasts, and much more.
16 years ago
Setting up a library of Jings is an ambitious project. One of the things I like about Jing is its simplicity and immediacy. Most of the Jings I create are to answer an immediate question. Someone asks something, and I use Jing to show them how to do it. I don't have to worry about a few stutters or clicking the wrong menu before I click the right one. I can just do it and send it off in less time than it would take me to answer the question with text. The times I have used Jing to create something "for posterity," it takes twice as long because I need 3 or 4 takes to get something that I am satisfied with.
ReplyDeleteIt seems that you are using Jing in a very useful way. As a teacher, I feel that, given the time that Dr. Marcovitz mentioned, I could make these to show students how to complete tasks at home. There are many things that I show my class and they need repeated over again (for instance, we use PollDaddy to make polls and I feel like I am constantly repeating over and over how to access and use the website from home to make polls).
ReplyDeleteJing could also be used to help to teach students how to use programs like Blackboard, wikis, and other educational sites.
Jing is so easy to use. Last year some teachers and I experimented on how to create the videos. We have interactive white board materials and microphones so my colleagues and I are going to try and have students make the videos. All teachers have had the instances where the students just do not understand what we are saying but if they hear it from another student it magically clicks in their head.
ReplyDeleteI am hoping that student made Jing videos will allow the magic of math to click to those few struggling students. And since the student is not actually being videotapped there is a comfort for some students.