URL: http://www.jingproject.com

I've used Jing to present seminar concepts when we had to miss the seminar for internet difficulties or holidays; it's a great little tool to spice up a course announcement, too. I made one to show how to get into and use the Kaplan library and have it embedded in my announcements (yes, I can hope they will actually try the library!).  Just to show you how it works, I created two quick Jings tonight:

The first demonstration (below) was created using PowerPoint for the visuals and a simple headset to add the audio ... I don't have a webcam. The PowerPoint was not done as a show: I used the down arrow on my keyboard to make it do from slide to slide. An actual PPT show would simply be too large.

You'll see that one of the difficulties with Jing is getting the sound just right, and you can't edit, so my stumble on the words and the low volume are there to stay. If I was to use this in the classroom, I'd end up doing more experimenting with volume and extra noise - I think my attic room is better for sound! - and probably end up recording several times before I was satisfied. That might sound like a pain, but I have been able to create a few that were satisfactory. 

Disclaimer: this way is somewhat like lecturing, and can be pretty dry (I just happened to have an old PPT on hand and wanted to show you how this works). If this would be the way I would choose to use Jing, I wouldlimit words on the slides and use the visuals to illustrate what I say. I figure if all the words were on the slides, why would I do audio?! Typically, I'd use more variety in my slides or break up the monotony of such a list by interspersing some related topics. Avoiding a dark background like the one here would make it easier to see, too. Ah, well, it's a demonstration! Note that both of these will take some time to load, since I couldn't figure out how to embed them here:

MultIntell.swf 

This second one is a larger file in terms of window size, which could be a difficulty loading (it took a while). I wanted to show how you can use Jing to show a process. I hope the photo doesn't scare anyone! I think you'll see some potential use in this other demonstration Jing-developed flash presentation:

PhotoInWord.swf

Features:

• Free!
• Audio enabled but you don't have to use audio
• Can show PowerPoint, video from webcam, or anything on your monitor
• Not too hard to learn to use

Limitations:

• Maximum 5 minutes in length
• Sound can be a pain to adjust (but eventually it works okay)
• Size of window directly related to size of file - keep it small so it will load without problems

Uses:

• Show a process
• Share information
• Give instructions
• Instead of adding audio to a short PowerPoint, do a Jing thing and they only have to click once to watch
• Can embed videos right there in your course if you have HTML capabilities, or add your presentation to YouTube and link to it

Tamara Fudge

Kaplan University