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Category Archives: Web 2.0 tools
A brief guide to Jing – the free screencasting tool
JIng (Photo credit: blogpocket)
The always-ready program that allows you to instantly capture images and record video on your computer—then share them with anyone through a variety of web 2 tools. The video below gives a nice introduction to Jing and how easy it is to use.
Good points
- It’s easy to use
- it’s free
- It captures both picture and movie from your screen
- it’s very easy to link with other web 2 tools i.e. twitter, facebook etc
- You can download the movie onto your computer to edit if you have an editing program
Bad points
- You are limited to five minutes recording
- you have to install the program on your PC/Mac
If you like what you have just seen but don’t want to download it yet – Try an interactive Jing Tutorial
Related articles
- TechSmith Announces Changes to Jing Pro (freetech4teachers.com)
- Five Best Screen Capture Tools (blowfish12.wordpress.com)
- Screencasting and student feedback (joedale.typepad.com)
A brief guide to ScreenR.com – the web based screencasting tool
ScreenR is a web based screencasting tool that makes it very easy to create and share screencasts
You must have an account to record and publish a screencast but you can sign into an account through Facebook, Twitter, Google, Windows Live or LinkedIn. Alternatively you can just create a “ScreenR” account
This video gives you a very quick overview of screenR
with a more comprehensive walk through available in the video at the bottom of this post
The good points
- It’s free
- it’s easy to use
- it’s web based so its accessible from everywhere with the internet
- you can download your video or export it to youtube
The bad points
- you are limited to five minutes
- zooming in and out during recording is not possible
Some examples using screenR
- How to create a mathcast with a tablet, MS OneNote and Screenr (2mins)
http://www.screenr.com/4AA created using Screenr and a tablet
- Compound Interest Example (3mins)
http://elearn.itcarlow.ie/FM/CEx1/player.html created using Screenr, a tablet and Articulate Studio
Related articles
- 3 Screen Capture Software Options: From Free to Not So Free (professorjosh.wordpress.com)
- 8 Free Screencasting Tools For Making Video Tutorials (smashingapps.com)
- YouTube Settings Teachers and Students Need to Know About (kylepace.wordpress.com)
10 Reasons to use Diigo – Articles – Educational Technology – ICT in Education
Although this is quite an old site, all of the reasons are still valid today
http://www.ictineducation.org/home-page/2009/11/2/10-reasons-to-use-diigo.html
Dropbox
Dropbox allows users to store and share files and folders (documents, photographs, videos, etc.) on-line
Add files to the public folder to allow other invited users to be able to view and edit them
Documents are stored online – some security issues have been raised in the past
Need to download the installation
Users do need to sign up to a Dropbox account but that is only a minor irritation
Go to Dropbox
Listen to the IT gurus talk about DropBox – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9PfBkm618w&feature=related
PBWorks
PBWorks allows users to capture knowledge, share files (lots of various types) and manage projects. Use PBworks to set up your own wiki. For a quick review on wikis I’d highly recommend the YouTube video produced by “CommonCraft”
Embedding an interactive mindmap into your blog – SpicyNodes.org
Spicy nodes are ideal for creating mind maps and sitemaps for websites. First of all it is free for individuals to use. There are commercial rates for organisations but if you are willing to put up with the company logo to be inserted on your mind map, you can create as many mindmaps as you like. One of the benefits of this software is the ability to link elements of the mindmap to specific urls, images and text boxes. You can also embed YouTube videos to any branch of the mindmap. The software is web based and produces interactive mindmaps that are flash based.
The snag with all programs like this is the ability to integrate them into your blog / website particularly if you are using WordPress. It is not as straight forward as you would think. However thanks to Panos Adams I am delighted to share the solution with you.
The solution involves a slight adaption of the embed code and producing a “gigya” code. I must admit this is new to me, I’m just grateful to Panos for sharing his expertise with this workaround for wordpress. The embed code below is a sample of the code that Sync node provides on any mind map produced through this software. The key section of this code is highlighted in red. You will have to excuse the quality of the text below as I had to paste an image of the code rather than type the code directly into the post
Related posts
Technology Enhanced Learning 