Saturday, April 2, 2011

Thing 20 - Jing It!

The latest tool I've learned about is called Jing.  Jing allows you to capture screen images and then narrate or illustrate how something happens.  You can use Jing to capture one screen shot or you can record several screens through a video feature.  I like the video feature because you can talk about what is happening and next steps as you go.  This is great for a person that really needs visuals to know how to do something on the computer.  I feel that this is a great tool for using with teachers in professional learning situations.  It's been very helpful to have these in the on-line portions of my grad classes so I could see how something was supposed to happen.  

I created a screencast for parents on how to access and subscribe to our class blog.  You can see it for yourself at http://screencast.com/t/aiDZDCbOwr4.

I found that I got very frustrated in the beginning because the tutorial provided in the site was not as specific as I wanted or needed. Thankfully, there were several more tutorials on YouTube.  The one I found most helpful was Jing Part 3.  The basic, free Jing subscription does not have an editing feature, so you have to make sure you have everything lined up correctly and have practiced so that you get what you need in one take.  If not, you'll have to start all over from the beginning (I won't even tell you how many times I had to start over).  I appreciated the pause button so I could catch a breath or organize my thoughts and pages before moving on.  This takes some planning in order to get a good product that you will be proud to use.  

Once you're finished recording or capturing, you can save it to your computer or to a site that holds your work.  The site gives you a url that can be posted in your blog or webpage.  You can also post your creations to YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, etc.  Your creations will be saved on your personal channel that you receive when you sign up on Jing.  

I plan to explore Jing some more, but for the moment, I'm glad this assignment is finished.



4 comments:

  1. I had to re-do mine a bunch and finally accepted my stumbling :) I did edit mine with Captasia, but is only a free trial. It was easy to use, but I plan on becoming an expert so I do not have to edit!!! I struggled in the beginning too, but now I feel accomplished and ready to do another!

    ReplyDelete
  2. It was nice to hear that I was not alone in having to redo mine a ton of times. It did seem very easy to use and set up. I thought it would be useful for giving instructions to parents on different topics. Do you see yourself using this more to help give instructions to parents and students. I really like how you used it to give directions to your classroom blog. I want to research to see if you can edit in screencast at all.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thank goodness for online support! I didn't have any trouble with Jing until I wanted to watch what I had created and couldn't figure it out! I just posted them to my websites and hoped for the best! thank goodness they worked!

    ReplyDelete
  4. I'm glad I'm not the only one who felt a little confused at first. The tutorial didn't give me enough information either. Thanks for the link to the video. I enjoyed watching your video on subscribing to your blog. That is a great topic choice for your especially since I can see many parents not knowing how to do that. Jing is something that I want to become really good at, but I'm with you in saying that I'm relieved the assignment is done.

    ReplyDelete