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.

Jing Image

Summary

Using Jing is a lot like using the Snipping Tool, except there are many more features. One of the features I like best is being able to include readable text boxes within the image you save. This allows for clear comments and easy instruction. Another feature I really like that the Snipping Tool doesn't provide is being able to screen cast your image to share it with other users. This is really useful because you can send a link to share the screencast with multiple people at once. Therefore, while the Snipping Tool is useful and already available on most computers without having to install anything, Jing has a lot better features and more capabilities.

What I did / How I would use it

For this assignment we were instructed to find a graphic online that we could use in our classrooms, and use Jing to share the graphic on our blogs. I decided this tool would be really useful to use when introducing poetry to my students because of the comment and highlight features. For example, sonnet forms can be hard for students to learn, and being able to go to a website and find examples to quickly mark for students would be extremely useful. Here is an example of a sonnet that I marked up for them: 

As you can see, the highlighting tool was really helpful because it allowed me to separate the sonnet into sections, and I used the arrows and text boxes for my comments. It would be easy for me to do the same thing on a Powerpoint presentation, but that takes time and planning. This tool is useful for spur of the moment examples, when students are having difficulty grasping a concept. If they don't understand the examples I provided in my lecture, I can just hop on the web and Google a sonnet example to show them like the one above. Taking it a step further, we could mark up a sonnet together as a class and I could post the link to our example on the class website for them to view using the Screencast feature. It's not as easy to do that with Powerpoint! Here is an example of my Screencast.

NETS Standards

This activity is directly related to NETS standard number two because I would be using online resources to maximize student learning. Using the internet allows me to show students multiple examples, and using Jing helps me facilitate their learning by adding comments, organizing the information, and making the information available outside of the classroom using the Screencast feature.

Diigo

Summary

For today's assignment, we joined a social bookmarking website called Diigo. Diigo is an extremely useful website to use because you can do a lot more than just bookmark various sites. You can also highlight text, insert comments, create tags, organize your websites by lists, share your sites with friends, send messages and much more. There is also a "Group" feature to share certain information with friends, peers, or students. This feature is great for collaborative research and keeping projects organized. 

Web 2.0 sites like this one are extremely important to the expansion of knowledge and growth because collaboration is key. People from all over the world can join together and share information with just a few "clicks" of their mice. Web 2.0 is also useful in the classroom and in business settings because it allows people to work together to share ideas and promotes social learning.

What I learned

Even though I use a social bookmarking website called Pinterest on a daily basis, I have never used one like Diigo. They have a lot of similarities, but Pinterest doesn't have a highlight tool or many of the other features the Diigo toolbar has. Because of these features, Diigo seems to be more useful for researching and scholarly information.

In my opinion, one of the best features of Diigo is the ability to bookmark websites to your account and access them from any computer. I can't tell you how many times I've been on another computer and have had to email myself a link to a particular website so I could access it on another computer. Especially since I occasionally conduct research on my work computer during the day. Now, I can just save it to this account and all of my highlights, comments, and sticky notes will be saved no matter what computer I use.

Here is an example of my Diigo Library: 

So far I've only added four websites, but I plan to add a lot more. I've also added my Diigo account link under the link list on my profile, but you can also view it here.

Questions and Answers:  

1. What browser do you use?

 Mozilla Firefox, although my brother often tells me to download Google Chrome. 

2. What is a browser add on? Give an example and explain why they are useful (if they are useful). Which ones have you used? 

Web browser add-ons add features to the browser you are using. One example is a "Facebook" add on, which is one of the ones I use daily. To access Facebook, all I do is click on the link and it takes me there immediately. Add ons like that are useful because because of efficiency. I no longer have to type out the Facebook web address, but instead I just simply click a link. On my old computer, I had add ons for everything! Some examples of add ons I've used include weather, news, and Twitter.

 
3. What browser add-ons are you currently using?

Besides the Facebook add on mentioned above, I also use the Diigo toolbar. I have my toolbar features set to include the highlight feature, comments, capture, send, and read later.I just bought a new netbook and I haven't fully set it up yet, so as of right now these are the only two add ons I have. 

How I would use it

I can see myself using this website on a daily basis for articles that I find interesting. I really wish I knew websites like this existed during my undergrad, because as an English major I had to constantly find and print journal articles to use in all of the papers I wrote. Not only could I have saved a lot of paper, but I also would have saved a lot of time. I used to have to save links to my flash drive, go to the library to use the printer, sort the pages, and then highlight and write comments on the information I wanted to use. How easy this website would have made things!  As an English teacher, I would really like to bring this website to my classroom so students could do research together using the Group feature.  As this interesting article suggests, students are more inclined to read and research if teachers make it interesting and allow them to be social. Not only are students focused on their social lives, but they are also all about the latest technology. Combining both would make me look like a saint! :)

NETS Standards 

The Diigo website activity focuses on standards one and two because it involves using digital tools to enhance student learning. This activity engages students and allows them to explore real world issues on the internet. Students would also have the opportunity to collaborate with their peers in a social, virtual environment.

 

Picasso Head

Summary

For today's activity we created a self portrait in the form of a Picasso painting using a website called Picasso Head. This site allows you to use their tools to create your very own masterpiece resembling Picasso's style of cubism. It's very simple to use and even someone like me, with very little artistic ability, can create something that looks artsy! I could have spent all evening playing around on this website, and I definitely plan to go back in and experiment with different shapes and colors. 

What I did

All I really had to do was click on the link and start experimenting. I dragged different shapes to the canvas and changed the sizes and colors until it looked how I wanted it to. This is what I ended up with...

 You can also view my painting in the gallery while you are browsing other artist's work. 

One "issue" I ran into was figuring out how to add hair to the over-sized head I chose. Many of the hair selections seemed to be for certain faces, and I couldn't figure out how to make it work until I realized there was a "rotate" feature that allowed me to position the hair exactly how I wanted it. The hair on my painting is now my favorite part because I got it to look wild and crazy, just like I wanted! Another other issue I ran into was figuring out the signature tool. I typed my name in the signature field and it showed up, but when I clicked "save" my name disappeared. I couldn't try it again without losing my painting so I just saved without it and took a snip on the gallery page so my name and title would be included.

How I would use it

As I was creating my portrait, I kept thinking about how much fun it would be for my students to use Picasso Head to create an image of a book character. For example, if we were reading Pride and Prejudice, I could take a day to bring in the class laptops and have them create their interpretation of Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy. I think this is something students would really enjoy and we could share our work with each other on the Smartboard so we could discuss why certain features were chosen. This activity would be fun, it would encourage classroom discussion, and students would be learning about character development through their eyes and the eyes of the author.

NETS Standard

The Picasso Head activity is best represented by NETS standard One because this activity promotes creativity and innovative thinking. If I incorporated the suggested activity I mentioned above into my lesson plans, students would use their knowledge of the book characters to create their very own character interpretations.

Revisit Resume

Summary
For this assignment, we uploaded our resumes to a program like Rezscore for an evaluation. This free service is really useful because it provides tips on how to improve your resume, and gives you very detailed feedback on your resume's strengths and weaknesses. 

What I learned
It turns out, I'm not wordy enough! When I first submitted my resume I got a "C+" because of brevity. 

After reviewing my score, I took my resume and I added more bullet points with more description and then I submitted it again, and I got the same score! I couldn't believe it, because I was worried that they would say I was TOO wordy this time. I did this about four times and decided to just accept the "C+" because I really don't want my resume to run into two pages long. Experts say your resume should be a page in length for every ten years or so of experience, and I haven't even started my career as a teacher yet! I know I'm not an expert, but I'll take my "C+" for now and add more words later when my career takes off. 

I also learned how to use a program called Jing to take a picture of the RezScore screen. This program is really neat because it is very similar to the Snipping Tool, but it has a lot more editing features. Using this program, I was able to create a text box and an arrow pointing to pertinent information. I can really see myself using this in my classroom- maybe even more than the snipping tool because of the text box feature!

How I would use it
I think it is important to keep your resume up-to-date, and this program will help provide tips throughout life as updates are made. I may not always use the advice they provide, even if I should, but it is always nice to have professional feedback and get a second opinion. 

NETS Standards
This activity best demonstrates NETS standard number five, because I used an electronic resource to enhance my learning and if I continue to use this program when making resume updates, it would be part of a lifelong learning process. I've also evaluated and reflected on current resume research that this program provided, and made changes accordingly. 

The Snipping Tool: Snip, Crackle, Pop

Summary

The Snipping Tool is one of the coolest applications I’ve seen yet. It is similar to the “print screen” option, but it allows you to be much more selective and provides tools to enhance the snip (such as a highlighter to highlight important information within the text and/or picture). 

What I learned

Rather than taking a snapshot of an entire screen like the “print screen” option, the Snipping Tool employs a cropping feature that allows you to select precise information.  This tool is particularly more useful than the “print screen” option when using dual monitors, which is what I have in my office. When you select “print screen” when using dual monitors, it shows an image of both monitors and shrinks it to fit on one page, therefore making the information nearly impossible to view. With the snipping tool, I can highlight information on either monitor without having to worry about view ability or showing both screens. I’m so happy that I’ve learned about this tool! I’ve honestly used it every day at work this week for various reasons.

How I would use it

I currently work in an office and I spend every single day in front of a computer. This week, I have used the Snipping Tool to teach users how to perform tasks and I’ve used it to take a snapshot of an error message that popped up while using one of our government programs. This was extremely handy because I was able to send an image of the error message to IT instead of typing it out for them.  In addition to using it in an office setting like I just mentioned, I also think this would be a useful tool for classroom use. For example, if I was giving a lecture on source citations and wanted to show them an example, I could take a snip out of the online MLA handbook and insert it into a Powerpoint or upload it on the Smartboard. Below is an example of such a snip: 

 I could also use the Snipping Tool to show an excerpt out of a novel we are reading in class, since most novels have electronic versions. If students have questions about a particular passage, or if there is something in the passage I would like to point out, I could upload it to the Smartboard for all students to see while we discuss it. An example of a book excerpt would look like this: 

 This tool has endless possibilities for classroom use and I can see myself using it often. 

Standards reflection

The Snipping Tool application touches on at least three of the NETS standards: one, three, and five.  NETS standard one is applicable because I would be using the snipping tool to facilitate student learning.  Even though I could easily come up with my own quote example and print it on paper for students to view, the snipping tool allows me to show students a quote taken from a real-life example off of the internet. Standard three is represented because I would be demonstrating a fluency in technology by incorporating the snipping tool into my lesson plan. And finally, I would be demonstrating the effectiveness of a digital tool as shown in NETS standard five.