Jing

http://www.techsmith.com/jing.html

What is this?

Jing is an incredible tool allowing you to record your voice and your screen simultaneously! Actually, you can record everything happening in front of the screen. You are able to get 2GB storage by registration. You are then free to record anything on your screen and share that with others.

How to use it?

1. Go to http://www.techsmith.com/jing.html and download Jing, you have to register using the Google email or email address. It takes a while for the download. 

2. After the download, click "capture" and then drag the area you want to capture, you can choose functions like Image, Video and so on. 

3. Click "Capture a Video" and start to record.

4. When you finish, click "Share via screencast.com" (which is on the left-hand corner, it is quite small) to upload the video and you will receive a link of your video from Jing.

The following is my own example of using Jing:

http://screencast.com/t/i0VRnOXW8t

Below is a very excellent tutorial video given by Russell in his teachers' training video website on how to use Jing:                http://www.teachertrainingvideos.com/Jing/index.html 

You can also view the official tutorial video given by Jing for complete understanding.

Why is the content good for language learning?

1. clearer, more precise: teachers can show the instructions or correction of the assignment to students 
2. formative and summative 
3. showing the emotion of teachers: the voice of teachers is recorded, this highly increases and reflects the authenticity of speakers, making the conversation more interactive 
4. multimodality: with the image of screen, the voice of speaker, the writing from typing all contribute to the idea of multimodality 
5. impact: the impact on the one who receives the video is impressive when multimodal elements are involved 
6. more elaboration: we often give more details in speaking than writing, since voice is recorded, the explanation of a particular point of view and some details of a piece of assignment can be discussed in great details by teachers 
7. more engagement of teachers, more interactive: it is like teachers are talking to students directly, students are more engaged in gaining feedback from teachers 
8. stylish (explanation usually comes along when in speaking) 

How might you use it in a language teaching context? 

1. in essay marking: teachers can give feedback using Jing, showing the mistakes students have and they explain the mistakes orally 
2. in talking about Timeline: students can give their presentation to teachers even they are away from teachers after school, students may talk about their best friends or pets or family as their presentation. After that, teachers can send their feedback about the presentation to students through Jing again. 
3. teaching activities can be carried out outside classroom: teachers can use this tool in distant teaching, having extra classes before public exams, giving writing assignment to students (which I have done as an example in Jing above) 

Limitations 

1. teachers need to be capable of controlling computer in order to be able to master the techniques from Jing 
2. it increases the workload of teachers when feedback takes place in Jing 
3. the maximum time of video is only five minutes, this may hinder 
4. the feedback giving by teachers or presentation by students

Dvolver

http://www.dvolver.com/moviemaker/make.html

What is this?

Dvolver is a 3-scene-cartoon online movie maker, you can design your own characters, setting, form of communication, background music and the content of conversation using this tool. Students can send the movies they made by sending the link to teachers and classmates through email after they have finished doing that.

How do you use it?

1. First of all, select the background and sky you like for your first scene
You can choose the climate and culture from the setting

2. Choose a plot for your scene

3. Select one or two character(s).

4. Type in the characters' lines

5. Select the background music



6. Select music title design



7. Preview and send the movie



8. Copy the code the white box and you have to make sure that it pastes into your blog in 'HTML' mode

DONE!

Dvolver is really user-friendly, it is free of charge and you do not even need to sign up for it. By simply clicking the link "Make a Movie", you start the first step of making your movie.


Choose characters you like, more than 30 different characters are provided, range from
there is a description of each character, some of them are normal-looking folks, some of them are celebrities lookalikes, some of them are animals, etc. 

Why is the content good for language learning?

1. students can create videos outside class, this video making tool is not restricted to time and space we can actually share the film with other people by email, or providing code to embed into your video of a blog post, Facebook page or Myspace page
2. it encourages creativity when students can create their own movies using their own ideas of story making
3. it introduces dialogues in a much more interesting way than rigid textbooks, it is a great tool in attracting young learners
4. it does not consume any space of your computer, as it is saved online

How might you use it in a language teaching context?

1. during the class, teachers introduce the movie using Dvolver, students learn the L2 dialogue from the movie
2. teachers can highlight some of the specific terms students encountered during the process, students can jot the difficult vocabulary down and practise writing and speaking when they go back home
3. teachers ask students to design their own movies based on the conversation they learn from class using Dvolver
4. students send their movies to their peers and give feedback to each other

Limitations

1. advanced learners may find it bored for the monotonous setting
2. conversation between characters is no longer than 3 sentences, more descriptive ideas cannot be written
3. it would be more interesting if speakers' voices can be recorded
4. teachers and students need to download the movies with internet service, the movie cannot be saved
5. the design of characters is not attractive or not familiar to students, at least not familiar to Hong Kong or Chinese students where I come from

TodaysMeet

http://todaysmeet.com/

This is a video from YouTube showing you how to use TodaysMeet.

What is this?

This is a tool for gaining collaborative thinking for students and teachers to brainstorm and discuss ideas on the instanteous platform. Teachers and students are able make comments, raise questions, and use that feedback to design their presentation and develop points based on this platform.

How do you use it?

1. All you need to do is to open the site, name the room. Click on the 'Create a Room' button and then you can enter your own classroom with your students.

2. You should type your name(s) and ideas related to the topic into the blue textbar.

3. In order to join the room, the name of the classsroom should be provided for people to get in.

For example, if the name of the classroom is 'Topic', then the URL address(website address) for the room will be www.todaysmeet.com/Topic. Messages you typed on the blue textbar will be displayed on the whiteboard on the left-hand side. The name of the person will also be shown under the ideas. The second idea will be on the top of the first idea and so on.

4. After the discussion, you can simply click on 'transcipt' or 'projector' button, and then you can have all the points discussed throughout the whole page.

Why is the content good for language learning?

1. it is very easy to use, especially for brainstorimg acitivities
2. it allows shy students to speak up in the discussion classroom
3. pros and cons can be easily stated once students enter their ideas to the classroom
4. students can throw all the ideas out at the same time

Limitations

1. there is only 140-character limit for each discussion, long sentences and detailed discussion are hindered
2. students may become bored easily when discussion is all about typing
3. there are other tools like Facebook, MSN, Skype chat, etc providing longer length of discussion and having similar functions as what TodaysMeet do