Jing: The amazing screen capturer!

What is Jing?

Jing is free downloadable program which allows you to record the screen of your computer, basically, everything you do in your computer and your voice at the same time, it's incredible, isn't it?. It is space saving because it gives you a free account to save your videos, or if you want you can also save the file on your own computer, you can be selective and capture the specific part of the screen you want to show. Within the area of teaching, it gives the opportunity to use it in different ways, for instance, teachers can provide some feedback to their students, guide them how to find some information in websites, give them support on their homework, and also students can use it to record themselves talking.  

You can find and download Jing in the following link:

techsmith.com

How to use Jing?

You can watch this video to learn how to use Jing:

Why is Jing relevant to language learning?

 

• It is a tool that encourages students autonomy because the teacher can provide some feedback about an activity without giving them the correct answer. Teachers can point out or highlight some specific or precise mistakes and students can revise, understand and correct them by their own.  

• When learners get some feedback through the use of this tool they are also receiving input of the language as they can listen to the teacher talking, hence promoting auditive learners. 

• Jing also favors the visual learning style because when students who learn better by seeing check their feedback, they can remember better the mistakes they made and they are unlikely to make them again.

• Students can get highly motivated and engaged by receiving feedback in this unusual way. Moreover, when teachers give them some feedback about an activity by recording their voices they can also add more than just one positive reinforcement  such as, good or well done, because it is easier and quicker to say it than to write it in a piece of paper.

• Teachers can elaborate and explain better a complex content or linguistic point and give more information about it in less time by talking.

• It can be also used to record an explanation to guide students about how to use certain tools, such as Vocaroo or Dvolver to do some activities or homework at home.

• Jing can also help to build up confidence in pronunciation because students can use to record themselves talking about a topic in their own context, at their own time and if they are not pleased with the result they can record as many times as they want to until they feel secured about it and send it to the teacher.

 

 

How might you use Jing in class/outside the class?

 

1. Within the classroom 

• It is important to bear in mind that all speaking activities that students would be required to do using Jing have to be organised, prepared and practiced in the classroom with the help of the teacher, and then, students can develop them on their own.

• Teachers can record the guidance, for instance, on how to use Jing or how to search a certain content in a website in advance and save class time, which is always limited.

• It is also more attractive and interesting to present a content, topic, grammar rules, instructions or vocabulary by using technology rather than doing it in the traditional way.

• Teachers can use this tool to show students how to search for specific information in a certain website. For example, teachers can ask students to do a research project, but during the development process teachers can support them by showing them a recording about what they expect students to include, write, read, etc. to accomplish the activity successfully.

• Teachers can also ask students to write an essay about a particular topic and then ask them to send it to the teachers.

     2.  Outside the classroom

 

• Teachers can provide detailed feedback to students about any written activity in relation to vocabulary, grammar and assess them formatively about their progresses.

• Students might record themselves giving a description about a picture of a place they visited, or a famous person. 

• Students can also discuss or comment about a topic, for example, they can make an outline about the different points they want to talk about in a word document, and use Jing to record themselves.

• Jing not only records a static screen but also allows students to record videos, and give comments on them.

• It gives the opportunity to use it for distant teaching.

What limitations can you see with the use of Jing? 

 

• It might be time consuming to give every student a very detailed and personal feedback if the class is large.

• It may be difficult for teachers to deal with the students who can not complete the homework because they might not have access to computers easily, or face problems to download the program.

Here, there is an example on how you can use Jing to give feedback to your students:

http://screencast.com/t/HJxuhixqAaJ