Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Tech Tuesday: Jing


We have already highlighted Jing in previous blog posts, but it is such a helpful tool, I wanted to bring it to your attention again.

Jing is basically a screen capture tool. Without Jing, when I try to take a screenshot, it is a little complicated. I have to press ctrl-Print Screen with the window I want a screenshot of selected. Then I open up paint and select 'paste' or type ctrl-v. Then I have to use the tools in paint to crop the screenshot to show only what I want to send, and to draw on it if I want to point something out. With Jing, all I do is click the yellow 'Sun' Jing places at the top of my screen. Three 'Rays' appear. The Ray on the left with the + sign is the one that activates the screenshot tool.

I then select the portion of the screen I want a shot of in the same way I create a box in Windows--by clicking on the screen where I want the top left corner of the screenshot to start, and then stretching the box out to cover the area I want to capture. Then I click the spot where the bottom right corner should be. Then I click the button that looks like a computer monitor, and voila! I have a screenshot. Jing has tools to the right of the picture that I can use to draw arrows, create text boxes, and draw frames around things, so I can point out exactly what I want people to look at.

When I am trying to explain what I am having trouble with to a professor, it makes things very easy. I can show them exactly where in Blackboard I am seeing a box with a red X in it instead of a picture, or whatever else I am trying to see if they can help me with.


I hope this saves you some time the next time you need to show your professor what you are seeing on your screen.

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