Weekly Report & Reflection Post #11 - Jing

Hey everyone, its been another great week and I am sad to say I am almost at the end of the road for this class. I've learned so much about digital tools and what it means to be a digital citizen. In this week's exploration, I came by a fantastic tool that I have never used before, a screencast software. Screencast softwares are typically used to make video tutorials and guides online, found in sites such as Youtube. It does this by capturing a video of your computer screen and audio at the same time if you so desire!

I explored a screencast software called Jing. It is a free software by TechSmith and it does everything you could possibly want in a screencast software. I really like Jing because it lets you capture any part of your screen that you want, making it really customizable and as a result allows you to customize it to your audience. Tools like Jing will definitely be useful to my educational activities as it can not only let me learn through tutorial videos made by others but it will also allow me to reinforce my own knowledge by creating videos for others! When others use Jing to create a video tutorial, I always find them extremely interesting and understandable. This is because I am a visual learner, I can learn something much better and faster if I see it done then compared to me reading instructions or hearing instructions without the visual aspect. So Jing really fits into the way I learn and will enhance my digital learning experience and knowledge building.

I think Jing is different from some of the other communication and collaborative tools I have used in the past. This is because unlike tools like Google Docs, Jing is a one way communication tool. The creator of the video or image with Jing shares it with others and transfers their knowledge to the viewer. Whereas other collaborating tools like Google Docs can be a two way communication tool, that is they allow transfer of knowledge between parties. Both sides can edit the creation and work on it collaboratively. Jing is also a unique presentation tool in terms of it being something that basically takes a mirror what you are physically doing in real time and using that as your presentation. I would put Jing into my PLE's Synthesizing and Creating category. This is because that is what Jing essentially is, it allows you to synthesize something from your computer. I would definitely add this to my PLE because I can see it as extremely useful in the future if I wish to share my digital knowledge through a video format.

Province of Ontario, source

I want to share an  article/news release from the government of Ontario that talks about helping universities focus on their unique strengths. First of all, I think this is a great idea. I think that in order to advance the level of post-secondary education in Canada, universities need to specialize more in field that they are good at. For example, it well known that University of Waterloo has a great computer science program. And I think if more universities like Brock can focus and be great at something, Canadian education as a whole will benefit. I think that universities should also expand their learning environments as the news release says. For example, universities should offer more online courses and options in order to expand the ways students can access education.

That's it for this week, my final week is approaching in week 12 as I discuss how my PLE has changed! Thanks for reading.

Billy