T3 Technology Tips and Tricks

05/31/2011

Using Jing in the Classroom

Jing captures anything you see on your computer screen, such as an image or short video, and lets you share it … You simply download Jing to your desktop and it will sit at the top of your desktop.
If you want to use Jing for video capture, you simply take your mouse, click and drag the area of the screen you want to capture and click. Then select to “Capture Video.” You can either record with narration or not – that’s up to you! Once you’re done recording, it will automatically upload your video to Screencast – where you can store up to 2 GB of storage, and access direct links and embedding code for your videos.
If you want to use Jing for image capture, you simply take your mouse, click and drag the area of the screen you want tot capture and click. Now, instead of click “Capture Video,” you’ll click “Capture Image.” Jing allows you to add text, arrows, boxes, and even highlighting areas to your image. You can save it, copy it to the clipboard, or send it to screencast!

So, how can you use Jing (or other capturing alternatives) in your classroom? Here are some quick ideas for you:

  • You can create training videos for quick and easy access for students, or even yourself for refreshers, etc

  • Have your students record themselves solving math problems and then post on your classroom blog!
  • Have your students record their presentations
  • Have your students record themselves researching and presenting their findings
  • Don’t stick to the norm! Have your students get creative – create a timeline of an explorer’s life and then present it via Jing!

There are a few things to remember while using Jing:

  1. You don’t have to click and drag for the video capture – Jing will also automatically register the size of the browser (if you’re using a browser)
  2. Jing does not resize videos like YouTube or Vimeo would do. Keep that in mind when selecting the size of your video.
  3. Save time by editing the “hot” keys so you have easy shortcuts for start, stop, etc.
  4. Use Jing instead of Print Screen! That way you don’t have to do all that cropping – you can just select what you want. You can also spice up your image capture with the text, arrows, highlighting, etc

  5. Consider changing your screen resolution to 600 x 800 when doing your screen capture – that is standard for most computers and will present the best quality for your videos.
  6. Remember that on the free version of Jing, each video can be a maximum of 5 minutes.

Do you have any classroom ideas you could add to this? Or how you’ve used Jing in the past? Please share!