Jing | Add visuals to your online conversations via kwout

Jing is one of the easiest tools to use to create screen captures and record and add voice overs to any onscreen activity. One can easily share what they have captured or recorded over the web, via IM or email.

The program works on both Windows XP/Vista and the Mac OSX. The free version offers all the features of the Pro – the Pro version just makes it even easier to share your videos at a higher resolution and allows you to export to the .mp4 format which enables you to edit the video in any video editing tool. Jing is made by TechSmith, the same folks who make Camtasia, and the videos are shared through screencast.com.

Up until recently I have only used the free version but decided to upgrade ($14.95 US) to get access to the higher quality video and the ability to export to .mp4. The following is an example of the video capture I created in just a few minutes:

Setting up Google Forwarding – View in “Full Size” for best quality

A few educational applications for this tool would include:

• Create a screen capture or video tutorial to explain a process, concept or idea.
• Comment on students assignments or work.
• Share a snapshot of a document.
• Collaborate on work.

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A.nnotate.com – Upload – Annotate – Share. Online document review and collaboration – PDF, Word and HTML via kwout

With A.nnotate you can upload pdf,doc, web pages, presentations and allow others to add notes, tags and other things to allow collaboration, evaluation or anything that you can dream up. It is all hosted online so now you can put up one document and send the link to hundreds of people who can then see it and annotate to it if needed.

The free service allows you to upload 30 pages per month and have unlimited commenters and a pricier solution for institutions allows unlimited everything for one server to be outfitted.

So what could A.nnotate be used for in education? Because the free version is limited I will limit my ideas to those that require the students to have accounts and upload papers of less than 30 pages per month.

• Have students get accounts to A.nnotate and send their papers to you the instructor for marking, this way they see nearly the minute you are done how they did.
• Use it for collaborative writing assignments
• Have the students critique each other before they submit papers
• Give it to students for note taking on their own papers

So what would or have you used it for?

Image via CrunchBase

I am sure most of you have heard of online whiteboards and applications like Elluminate  and Wimba.  Twiddla is very similar to these types of applications but without all the bells and whistles. At its core it allows you to easily set up a common Twiddla session complete with audio and text chat. You have a suite of editing tools which include drawing, text bubbles, media import and the biggest reason to use Twiddla, web page importing. Drop any URL into the Twiddla online browser and voila you can mark up that page however you want. All this is done online with no downloads, no signups and a very easy invitation form to invite other attendees.

So how can you use Twiddla for Education:

• Have distance students attend a session where you use Twiddla like a physical Whiteboard. Like a lecture.
• Open a Wikipedia page and show where it is inaccurate or accurate. You can then browse to different webpages and dynamically change those new sites.
• Have a collaborative brainstorming session.
• Solve Math problems either collaboratively or in the form of a lecture.
• Upload images and mark them up.
• Upload documents to send to all attendees.
• With the ability to embed other widgets the possibilities really open up and allow a whole new host of things that are possible.

That’s what I would do but I don’t have the opportunities that some of you have so let me know what you would use it for or what you use Elluminate for and share the love.