As I get started with my course planning, I thought I would share two of my favorite tools for course planning.
1. Evernote (www.evernote.com). I use Evernote for everything. If I hear a great story on NPR, I save it in Evernote and code it with the course name and subject. If I see a great article online, drive past an interesting sight and take a picture - Evernote saves all of these things and allows easy tagging to effortlessly find the info later. Plus, it lives on every device I own, so my notes and the ability to make them is always with me.
2. Jing (http://www.techsmith.com/jing.html) I make a lot of quick videos for my courses and the absolute easiest way to do it is with Jing. Now, I am not a perfectionist (which will rapidly become apparent to you), so the lack of editing features in Jing is a big plus for me. With the 5 minute time limit, it keeps presentations tight and focused. I use Jing Pro, which lets you save the videos in a format (MP4) that you can easily upload to YouTube. However, Jing Pro is being retired (I'll blog on this later) and Snaggit is replacing it. I'll let you know what I think about that soon. Still, the free Jing tool isn't going anywhere and it is really a super simple way to make videos.
I'd love to hear about some of your favorite tools. Why don't you add them to the comments area.
Betsey: I use Evernote for everything also. And it is a great procrastination tool, as well. I can go in and look at what I have saved as a way of getting myself started.
ReplyDeleteI love SnagIt, better than Jing. It does allow editing... time eater... but if you're NOT a perfectionist, it helps for some things. I like to use SnagIt to for screenprints and then narrate the specific features in the screen print.
ReplyDeleteI too am a Jing user - it is great for short little how-to videos for my students. I'm willing to create them on demand because I don't bother to script or edit, so it is spontaneous, and not too much work.
ReplyDeleteDropbox (www.dropbox.com). "Dropbox is a free service that lets you bring your photos, docs, and videos anywhere and share them easily." I have Dropbox downloaded on all of my devices. I can drop files into it from any device, then open, edit, etc. from any device.
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ReplyDeleteEvernote is fantastic! I've used it for over 2 years and encourage students to use it also.
ReplyDeleteI've also started using a web app called Instapaper to save websites, blog posts, articles, etc temporarily as I am searching or surfing. It has a plugin for Firefox that puts a "Read Later" button on my menu and I can just press that button to save anything quickly to my Instapaper page. It's better than bookmarking - I can never keep track of all my bookmarks! I then go back to the Instapaper page once or twice a week to filter what I have been reading and then decide if it needs to go into my Evernote notebooks as a more permanent part of my research collections.
Here's a link:
www.instapaper.com/
I can't believe I didn't say Dropbox too. I guess I assume everyone is already using it, but it is the single most helpful tool I now have as an Instructor besides my LMS. I have tied-in Filestork for submissions that are too big for my Angel drop boxes. www.filestork.com You must be set up with Dropbox first to use it.
ReplyDeleteJing does rock, since it's faster and simpler to use contrasted with Camtasia!
ReplyDeleteStephanie, any reason you like evernote vs., say, Delicious (which I used)? Thanks!
I don't use Jing, because I use Tegrity. I use Tegrity to record my computer screen while I create drawings in Paint while I explain (audio) a concept to students. Power Point is also a good way to make animated drawings.
ReplyDeleteI've become a fan of Jing as well for short how-to's. For longer, more polished tutorials, I use Captivate.
ReplyDeleteAnother free tool that one of my colleagues highly recommends: ShortKeys (great for writing instructors who need to quickly reproduce the same explanations when correcting parts of speech errors, etc.)