Wednesday, August 1, 2007

I'm a Kid at Heart

I use to get into trouble at my old school district for saying things like "Today we played with PowerPoint" or "Today we're going to play around on the web", even though the PowerPoints were their science projects and the Internet was research based. I'm one of those that believe in the power of play - whether it's structured or free-flowing. (At times though, structured play works best. Classroom time is one of those times.)
So I love that right now I have the opportunity to play with new tools. I especially love the free tools. Woo hoo! I'm learning more and more from Twitter each day.
One of the greatest things about the Mac is the screen capturing capabilities. It's so much easier. But then you have to still take it into a program to add any text boxes or anything else you need to add. I mentioned earlier that I got one of those wonderful copies of Skitch, and I finally tried it out today. Didn't take me long to create this today. Just take a snapshot - or use your camera - and add details where needed. Not too bad. And it was quick. I really spent less than 5 minutes learning the program and doing this. WOO HOO!

But wait, this is only for my Mac. What about when I have to work on my PC? (I'm one of those who absolutely refused to do the Windows side with Boot Camp. Why deface a thing of beauty? But I have to use a PC for work purposes.) What do I do then? Well then, I would use Jing. So cool! And it's actually for PC or Macs. You can create a simple video cast or image, with all sorts of draw tools. Then you can get a link for your screencast! (http://www.screencast.com/t/oGpmoKqan) . The video by the way even records AUDIO! The first time, I did this, I didn't realize it and had Sponge Bob in the back. You can still slightly hear him, but I re-did it and added the audio. You can check it out here: http://www.screencast.com/t/N_y1LBcL

And I learned all this on Twitter.

Oh this is tough. Which tool do I want to use?

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