Jing Video

Summary

As I mentioned in my previous post, Jing has many more capabilities than the Snipping Tool. One such capability is the option to create a short video (up to five minutes in length). For this assignment, we used Jing to create a short instructional video that teaches students or parents how to perform a task on the computer.  In my example, I created a screencast to teach students how to cite a source using a website called Son of a Citation Machine. I think this video would be really helpful to students because many of them don’t even know that this website is out there for them to use. I know many teachers insist on teaching them how to create citations manually so that they are able to create them on their own without assistance, but to be honest I don’t really buy into that type of thinking. I got through college as an English major solely relying on this tool and it has never let me down. I think it is important to know the basics of citing a source, but why spend tons of time teaching students how to do something that you can simply input to a website to get accurate results in less than a minute? I would rather ensure that they know of a solid resource to use for citing a source accurately, than rely on them to remember the order of citing a textbook, novel, journal article, and podcast in both APA and MLA format. Technology is out there to be used and it seems to be growing more and more popular every generation (my 1.5 year old niece knows how to use an IPAD) so I think it is important to provide technological tools to our students so that they know what resources they have available to them. 

What I did

Creating the screencast video was just as easy as capturing a snapshot of my screen. The first step I took to create my screencast was selecting the perimeter of my video. With Jing, you take pictures and create videos of information that is shown on your screen, so you can set the perimeter to whatever size you want to meet your needs. For this task, I selected the whole screen so that I could show students how to use the entire webpage. After I selected the perimeter, I clicked on the “capture video” button and it gave me a countdown before my video started recording. After I was finished recording, I clicked “finish” and the movie ended. At that point it gave me options to save, upload to Screencast.com, replay, or discard my video. I saved a copy to my computer (they are saved as SWF files), and uploaded it via Screencast.com to share with you. You can take a look at my video here.

The Jing Sun has three prongs, one of which is a history tab that saves all of the images and videos you create. If you don’t upload your video or save it, this prong stores the information for you so you can access it at a later time. However, I’m not sure if I did something incorrectly, but I was not able to access my history from one computer to another, which was very frustrating. I logged into my Jing account at work and created my video and then when I logged into my account on my home computer the file was not there. So I don’t think the Jing history lets you access your images/videos from multiple computers- unless I’m wrong. Ha! The other two prongs are Capture, and More. Capture is the prong you choose to take images and/or videos, and More is where you send feedback or change your preferences. 

How I Use it

I think it is really useful to be able to upload videos to Screencast.com because you can send the link to anyone to view it. This will be extremely useful in my classroom because I could simply post the link to my classroom website so students have access to the information any time they want. At my current job, I spread the word of Jing to my coworkers and we are going to start making video tutorials teaching users how to create Purchase Orders and Requisitions for government orders. No more guiding people via telephone and taking a guess at what they are looking at on their screens. Now we can upload a simple tutorial for everyone to see. They love that I’m taking a technology course!

NETS Standards

This activity represents NETS standards One, Two, and Three because I would be using technology to facilitate student learning, to exhibit knowledge of a digital society, and to design a digital learning experience.  I could teach students how to manually create source citations using worksheets, but incorporating screencasts into my lesson plans is more efficient, and I can upload the links online so students can access the tutorials whenever they need to.