Using Jing to Teach the Teacher!

I have been using Jing for several months now. I encountered the product out of frustration with my non tech-savvy co-workers. One of the most frequent technical issues that our new or techno-phobic teachers encounter is basic account information, access to student gradebooks, and posting student reports using the Edline student information system. I answer the same questions over and over. Some of the educators understand me, and some of them don’t. Sometimes, I have a hard time seeing the problem from their point of view. It’s one of my professional (and personal) issues regarding patience. I don’t understand “Edline is not working” or “No one can see my reports - its broken”. After I look into the problem and try to explain the steps to them, and they still don’t get it, I am just as frustrated as they are. We don’t seem to speak the same language! But now that I have Jing....we do!

Jing is basically a screen sharing tool. It allows you to capture anything on your computer screen either as a still image or as a video up to 5 minutes long. It is an excellent tool for narrating and sharing what is on your screen. Screen capture tools allow you to make a narrated video showing how to do something on a computer. It records your mouse, and everything you click on and show on your screen. 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.
When the teacher tells me that they would like to change their password or forgot their password. I forward them a link to the Jing “movie” I created showing them exactly what to do. They can watch it once, twice...as many times as they want! If a teacher would like to add certain fields to their gradebook reports to parents, I forward them a Jing video that shows them exactly what to do. Now when that still fails, at least we both can speak in the same language. I can better understand what they did and what didn’t work and they can understand me, with my techno language and all. This trick has helped me solve the work-related issue of having to explain over and over again to your users how your library systems work. It’s a great compromise!

There are many more possible uses of Jing that I would like to provide our Educators as part of general technical support and professional development:

• Create a wide variety of training videos for all areas of our School Information System and online activities required by their supervisors
• Record presentations on how to use certain tech tools in their classrooms
• Record presentations on what technology tools can be helpful for different projects/grades/subject matters.

You can download a free version of Jing at http://www.techsmith.com/jing/.